Mixed Martial Arts

#UnsentLetters: Maybe in the hereafter

Rappler.com

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#UnsentLetters: Maybe in the hereafter
What happens when love and faith collide?

Unsent Letters is a newsletter curated by Shakira Sison featuring unspoken sentiments gathered from reader submissions. It features unsent letters to real and imagined lovers. 

We met when I was 12 and you were 13. You were my first friend in high school. I was the new girl, the rest of you knew one another since grade school.

Not long after, we became a couple. You were my first, as I was yours. We were each other’s firsts of so many things. First kiss, in the middle of our math class you leaned in and kissed me. The first time we made love – junior prom, Shangri-La. The first time I got my heart broken – summer of 2013.

Our lives are so entwined. It’s been almost seven years since first year high school. You were my first love, my best friend, my world revolved around you.

Our relationship was so complicated. I’m a Muslim girl, you’re a Catholic boy. But somehow, things worked out. Until they didn’t.

I wasn’t really religious but I kept an intimate relationship with God. Every night, I would talk to him; plead with him. “Please, let this be right, please make this work,” I would say. Because what’s wrong with falling in love with someone from a different religion? I knew in my heart that God was merciful, that he was accepting, that humans are the only ones who are highly incapable of accepting. They say the heart is the wildest creature that God had created; that’s why it’s caged in our ribs. Yes, what a wild heart I have. For I have braved the unbearable and unspeakable just to have a shot at a forever with you. 

Every now and then we would get into huge fights because of this, because we were scared of my family knowing. But soon after we came to a resolve: right after we graduate from college, we would migrate and live in Australia. We would come back once everything has died down, once our parents finally accept us. Because we were their kids, di ba? How heartless could they be to cast us out forever? 

Senior year of high school; I found out I was pregnant. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do. All I knew was that no matter what it took, I was going to keep our baby. Even if it meant that my parents would disown me, even if it meant that I would have to quit school. No matter what it took, I was going to keep our baby. But I never had the chance to defend his life from my parents because we lost him. We didn’t know what his gender was but we assumed it was a boy, we named him after you. The night we lost him, I lost a huge part of you, too. You blamed me. I blamed myself. Now every time I see a baby, my heart breaks for our little Abbie – for the life he was deprived.

Months before college started, my father found out about us. He made me break up with you. But even then, even before I ended the relationship, you were already drifting away from me. Soon after, he sent me away. But you still called me, still kept in touch. You said you couldn’t find it in you to find another while I was still alive, that as long as we’re breathing, no matter how far apart, we would always be one another’s person. 

Three years later – 2015. I’m in this god-forsaken province. You’re still in Manila. We lost touch November 2014. I heard you found somebody new. It tore me apart.

Every waking moment is a nightmare. Every breath I take feels like a stab in my chest.

I don’t really know the point of this letter, or why I’m sending it to someone I don’t know, for everyone to see. 

I just really can’t believe that you’ve finally moved on. Maybe I have to start working on it, too.

Every night I dream of the life we could have been living right now if we were born under different circumstances. The children we would have had, the house we would be living in.

I just want you to know that I’m truly grateful for having been given the privilege to have known and loved you.

Out beyond right and wrong, there is a garden. I’ll meet you there.

Till we see each other again, may it be in this lifetime or in the hereafter. I love you. – Rappler.com

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