JUST SAYING GOODBYE – Part 4 -End

 

UNDER the umbrella in the middle of a heavy rain, their love was born. It was the start of many happy days in her youth. Her friends and girls in the campus were jealous of her for many adored the popular Alex Montoya.

 

They dreamed about getting married. They dreamed to have children and many more beautiful dreams but fate interfered.

 

SHE was invited to all girls only party by her friend Susan. Susan was engaged and will got married that’s why all the girls only party.

 

The party was held in a hotel. All expenses were paid by Susan’s brother who was a seaman. It was a happy and wild party. They drink; they dance; the girls all became drunk and so Anita.

 

Anita did not know what happened, but she wakes up in a bed naked and next her, a man who was also naked.

 

“Who are you?” Anita was shocked. “Where am I?”

 

“I am Edmund, Susan’s brother,” the man who introduced himself as Edmund answered Anita with a big smile in his face.

 

“Where I am? Why I am naked? What happened?” Anita was panicking.

 

“Relax, I’m assuring you, I will stand to what I did,” Edmund said.

 

Anita remembered the first time she met Edmund, the father of her children. The man who became her husband. It was the first time she saw Edmund, the brother of Susan. A seaman, Edmund came home only once a year to his family.

 

She did not know what to do. She was so ashamed. She was a virgin. Edmund was the first man that had sex with her. She always said to Alex, that she will walk in the isle a virgin when they marry, but now it would not happen. She was no virgin anymore. One big mistake and her life changed forever, not only her life but of Alex too.

 

ALEX did not understand why she avoided him. She even will not talk to him, until she decided to stop going to school. She decided to marry Edmund to follow a tradition or a saying of the ancestors, YOU GET UP WHERE YOU FALL.

 

Edmund was happy, but Anita said the marriage would only happen if Edmund would bring her far away from their place. She could not handle to see what’s happening to Alex. Alex personality was declining, he was no popular anymore in the school. He was no Basketball star player anymore too. Once an adored person was now hated and mocked because of many blunders and unpleasant things he did.

 

After the marriage, she and Edmund decided to go to Manila. They rent an apartment and Edmund continued being a seaman for two years more.

 

The marriage with Edmund stayed for six years. Edmund died in a car accident. Her father in their place also had an accident that he lost a leg, and because she was an only child, she invited her parents to live with her in Manila which they did.

 

As she struggled in life, caring her children and her parents, Alex was pushed away from her mind, until now, seeing him again, seeing her first love, unrecognizable and dead.

 

The pains again struck Anita’s heart. Guilt, she was to be blamed to what happened to Alex. Alex was hurt that much and he destroyed himself but she knew, she was the one who destroyed the man she loves. How did Alex with her mother landed in this garbage dumping site? Why did Alex and his mother were living in Manila? Was it possible that because she leaved their place, Alex did it too, to follow her? Alex was the man that bumped her, he came to her as what he said, I am just saying goodbye. Alex did it while he was already dead.  

 

The pains in Anita’s heart made her tears just falling down continuedly, that she even did not notice that there were people busy around her. Aldo, who was busy taking video said to her.

 

“Anita, they are taking away the body, should you not say anything? Why are you just crying there?”

 

“Oh, sorry people. This is my first vlog as a charity vlogger,” Anita stood up and made the people as background, then continued her talking. She still could remember what she had learned when she studied the course of Mass Communication, the course she did not finished because of what happened to her life.

 

“Sorry that I cannot hold my tears. It’s the first time I see, how our fellow countrymen lived like this. Imagine,” Anita walked to where the mother of Alex was standing and put her hand to the woman’s shoulder, “this woman we saw her crying outside her hut, because she doesn’t know what to do. She was hungry, had not eaten because there are no foods and her dead son was just lying on the ground for many hours already and she doesn’t know what to do. Look around,” Anita holds the hand of Aldo towards the hill of garbage for him to film and then continued again her talking, “these people lived at the edge of this garbage dumping site. Dirty, stinky but it’s only here they could earned a bit to survive the day, but always it’s not enough for food. The dead man they’re carrying to bring in the cemetery, her mother had no money for the doctor, and also no money to bury him. The municipality was now shouldering everything.” The video filming was now focusing to the funeral car as the dead body of Alex Montoya was put into, then Anita heard a voice. “I forgive you, Anita.” Anita was aghast, she saw a man standing near her, it was Alex. Suddenly, Anita burst to sobbing that some people looked at her. “I am going, please take care my mother. Goodbye Anita, I love you very much. Goodbye,” and the feature of Alex shimmered to disappear. “Sorry, folks these things touch me hard,” then Anita walked fast to catch the mother of Alex who was walking to the Van that would bring her to the cemetery. “After the burial I want to talk to you. I will help you if you allow me,” Anita said to the woman that answered her, “Thank you, I can use all help because I had nothing.”  

 

Anita and Aldo with their motor follow the two cars heading to the cemetery.

 

“When the simple coffin donated by the municipal was lowered to the ground with the body of Alex Montoya in it, the mother of Alex cried. Aldo recorded all the happenings as he stayed filming.

 

“My son rest in peace. I love you. You became a strange person, people say you are insane, but how I wish you still alive and with me. What will I do now? I am alone.”

 

Anita then talked, so Aldo focused the camera to her. “You see and hear. I pity the mother, she won’t lose her son even everything calling her son insane, the love of the mother. I am thanking the Municipal Social Department for their quick response, but I am still calling our government. This grieving woman has a daughter she never heard after the daughter went to the Middle East to work as a domestic helper. Please help her to locate or know what happened to her daughter. I am the one begging to our government. Goodbye, Alex, Alex Montoya, rest in peace. I promise I will help your mother.” then Anita wiped her tears that just kept streaming, then said the closing remarks of his vlog, “I am sorry, I did not expect that this first vlog of mine will beaten me this hard. But if you are witnessing all of these in person, you cannot escape being emotional, and I just could not hold my tears. People, those of you who have a good heart and will help, you are welcome and please don’t forget to LIKE, SHARE and SUBSCRIBE. Thank you and God bless you all.”

 

Anita played it well. As she said it, that she was beaten by the hardships of life of the people she encountered that day, no one will ever suspect that her emotions were so heavy because the concerned person was her First Love Alex Montoya of which his life she destroyed.

 

ANITA for two days stayed in her room and diverted her thoughts to her video editing. When she finished and uploaded it on YouTube, she stayed two days more that worried her parents.

 

“Anita, open the door; Aldo wants to talk to you,” Tonya knocked on the door of Anita’s room.

 

“Okay, I come,” Anita answered her mother.

 

In the living room, Aldo had a big smile in his face.

 

“Why are you smiling?” Anita asked.

 

“You are a sensation. Do you know that you are the first vlogger that expressly in just one day was been monetized by YouTube? Your subscriber rocketed fast to almost a million and that you had views of more than five million.” Aldo was very excited.

 

“Impossible, I won’t believe it!” Anita answered her cousin.

 

“The way you talk, you don’t know yet that you became a viral topic in FB,” Aldo said.

 

“And why I would be?”

 

“You were also in the evening news on TV. Remember that man with a camera when they came to take the body? He was a journalist; maybe because you were in the news people look at on YouTube your video.” Aldo told Anita that she was on the TV in the evening news.

 

‘Your emotional crying touched many viewers, and you cannot believe it, many viewers from

abroad wanted to help the mother of that dead person. Take your computer we look and read together the comments of the viewer.”

 

And they did. All what Aldo said to her being the sensation and viral news were true. She also could hardly believe but her channel has almost a million subscribers. Instantly she was monetized by YouTube and the comments were all so positive. Anita doesn’t know it that a Charity Vlogger was born so as she dreamed for herself.

 

She thought, was it just coincidence or have something to do with fate? Fate that she decided to stop working in the call center to do vlogging? To do vlogging so that Alex Montoya could say goodbye to her? Anita’s mind was tortured but at the same time relieved, she thought and she believed Heaven had so much pity to Alex Montoya, for he had searched for a long time and even his soul wandered looking for her. Anita with tears in her eyes whispered to herself “thank you, Alex for forgiving me and I promise I will take care your mother.”    ****End****              

by Remedios Dorio.  

 

Note: The dark highlighted words were the words Anita talk to her vlogging.