29 days

On the eve of the 30th day since my mom passed away, I want to share once again a passage from the sermon of Henry Scott Holland at the St. Paul's Cathedral following the death of King Edward VII.

“

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

”

To say that we miss you is an understatement. 

"UNSITTING" my boss...

I can go as far as calling the 4th day of October 2006, the day I entered the Fund as “momentous” for at that exact moment. I have a couple of nasty past experiences in my young professional career to get over with, a dwindling relationship to mend, several bills and loans to settle and a shattered ego to pick up and put together. You see, the road I paved towards the so-called pinnacle of success I envisioned just got obstructed. I just ran into a strong wall and I was having a hard time to push myself back up. It was the time when all effort and sacrifices I made for the past 5 years, job-wise, just got thrown out of the window without having the chance to save it.

So when I passed my resume a month before, I said to myself, “This is where I will start all over again”. This is where I will lick my wounds, pick up the slack and be on the hunt once again to that “something” that has eluded me. This is my chance. I remembered the Greenday song, Wake Me Up When September Ends. I guess I did wake up when September ended. I woke up on the 4th day of October. Yes, this is the start.

And so on October 4, I started working with a lot of hope and aspiration even though my status here is not that stable or ideal for someone starting all over again. I am a contractual employee of the Fund. My status as a contractual employee is a first for me considering that I came from a private firm where after just three to six months of probationary period, an employee can attain a regular or permanent status as long as he has satisfactorily passed his probation. But with all the hardship I felt several months before, I somehow learned to find contentment and positivity at that very moment.

But though contented, I am not the type of person who dwells on the same situation.

Just like old times, I started dreaming once again, though sometimes far-fetched, right here at the Fund. I was having the desires I had before. I began desiring the sits of PRR, Sir Tito or maybe Boss Mayet just like I desired the sit of the CEO of my previous employer a few years back. Too ambitious as it may sound, it has been my personal inner drive ever since I started working. To work to unsit the highest officer of the company I worked for, that is. I may not be successful but I still have the sit of the second highest to work for. That was my philosophy.

Years from now, I may not be here in the Fund. I may be somewhere else. I may be unsitting a boss somewhere else. But October 4 will forever be remembered, at least to me, as the day when I started all over again, started dreaming and started chasing it. In a more personal perspective, it was the day when I was given another chance and the Fund gave it to me.

This is my story.