I really cannot imagine a mother leaving her still young daughter on a corner pavement with her baby brother in her arms asking for anything from alms to half-drank Coke floats on a late Sunday evening with everyone else going to malls, partying, and plunging into eating binges. I can go on describing and going into details about what I just saw but what I cannot blabber is the feeling it gave me. I was moved to tears when the little girl looked at me teary-eyed. Maybe she was hungry and couldn't stand up to buy food because it seemed that her baby brother was too heavy for her to carry. Or she was feeling lonely to be all alone by herself with oblivious strangers just passing by her.
Sympathetic and all, I remember a time when I walked from UP Diliman to Malabon City. I went to UP to see my best friend wearing my Letran uniform and carrying my backpack full of books and choir uniform. He seemed to have forgotten me when he rode a jeep going home and left me penniless. He knew I had no extra money then and said he would pay for my fare. :)
So I tread every pedestrian lane, careful not to expend my strength all at once from walking unlimited kilometers to reach my destination. It took me almost four hours. I was so hungry at the end of the ordeal and my legs and the soles of my feet were aching, bloated I presume. I think I've sung almost all the songs that were written during that time. It was one of the memorable experiences I had tucked in the corner of my brain and summoned only when a subject like that random little girl calls for needed empathy and act of kindness.
I don't want to feel sadness to that extent ever again because of someone's negligence. But as much as I want to erase every girl's painful memory more so mine, I can only ask and pray that they'll surpass and survive their own battles and challenges. As for you, Yumi, you will always be loved... Sorry that I fell deaf to your chance of becoming a blessing to all you would come to know. You are and will always be every random girl I would see... the face of my dearest.
