About 4 months ago, I've posted an announcement that my friends from Light Crystal Publishing House was holding a short story contest for their first year anniversary. Of course, I've also joined the said contest. A few months later, sometime around the end of November, I received a message via Facebook that the short story I've submitted was picked and will be included in the soon to be published book. And of course, I tweeted this. And just a few days ago, I received the official email, stating the same message from LCPH.

Official email:

I wasn't really expecting my short story to be included so I was really surprised. For one, LCPH is a Christian owned publishing house and my short story is, well, uhm, not so Christianly. And it isn't your typical love story either. But I meant for the story to turn out like that. Another thing is my ability to write. I used to write fan fictions and I also used to role-play, but I'm not really good at writing, except for maybe, poems. You can't really call fan fictions literary works. Though, when I submitted this, I thought it's worth a try and joining would be fun. So submitted my own short story, anyway. And I'm glad I did. :)

Here's the last picture we took of our dad. We had lunch (if you still consider a meal at 3pm, a lunch) at President Restaurant that day with our cousin, Allan, and her daughter, Jenny. He doesn't have a lot of pictures because he hates getting his pictures taken.

(Allan, Jenny, mom and dad)

My dad's actual birthday is yesterday. I just didn't have time to post this, so I'm posting it now.

Today's my dad's 49th day. We went to the cemetery to light candles, offer food, burn incense and burn joss paper – the usual stuff.

In Chinese funeral traditions, funeral lasts for 49 days. According to my dad, when my grandfather died, it takes 49 days for the spirit of the dead to journey to 地狱 (Diyu) or underworld, where dead people are being judged based on how they lived their lives. It's where people are judged by how they lived their life, and depending on it, their spirits are either punished or renewed and reincarnated right after.

Exactly 40 days ago, I lost one of my life's most important pillars. I can’t even begin to describe how I'm feeling right now. I couldn't remember exactly how I felt that night when I heard the news. But I can remember the scene clearly, and I'll probably never forget them.

I remembered my mom calling me and telling me that afternoon that our dad was rushed to the hospital because he was vomiting blood. Later that night, my mom called again and told me, he's already confined and that he seem to look better. Much later, around midnight, my mom called again to ask me to come home immediately as she told me that our dad's in a critical condition. And a few minutes after that call, my mom called again and told me he passed away. I packed my stuff and asked a housemate to help me to the bus terminal and we left at 3am. I arrived 2 hours after that to a house where everyone was staring into space and crying their eyes out.

I remembered how we run around the next day to buy stuff we would need for the funeral. I specifically remembered when we went shop after shop looking for a set of suit our dad. I felt sad and pathetic that we couldn’t even give him a set of nice new suit to wear and we had to settle with worn stuff because we couldn’t afford new ones because we’re budgeting all our savings for the expensive funeral service cost. We couldn’t even truly grieve properly because we need to run around to fix stuff like death certificates, insurances and such.

I was okay when we were driven out of our own house more than a year ago, when some bastard scammed our house. It's painful to lose the house where you practically grew up, but we were together and we managed to hold on and moved on. But this time, I do not think I'll be able to move on.

Every day as soon as wake up, I feel like crying. And every night, before I go to bed, I just wanted to drift away to rid myself of the pain.

Please tell me this is all just a huge elaborate dream. Please wake me up from this nightmare.

Please.

I just read your email. I'm sorry if I'm just facing this issue now. I had more pressing matters to attend to than this. As you know, my father died. And this issue just had to appear at the exact same time.

Before all this, I knew there was something. I just didn't know where and what exactly. I didn't lie, I just kept it to myself. Choosing to shut up this time, is one of the wisest decisions I've made in my life. But I'll have you know, I was never proud of it. It's painful to keep things especially when you know that those things you're keeping could really destroy another person's heart.

I didn't utter anything to anyone because I might end up being wrong and hurt other people who are also involve in this entire issue. And it turned out that I was really wrong. I believed you and was even trying to defend your side, in a way that I won't come out offensive, to support your decision. I was trying hard to minimize the damage to preserve the friendship. But then, after all that, I would learn later on that you also had me fooled. What I thought were true and was trying my best to keep to myself were, in the end, just a bunch of lies too.

You know, I admire people who admits their own fault. I may not, or possibly may never will, know if what you've told us from your email were really true, this time, or just another bunch of lies again. But I've always believed in second chances. Even though I cannot grant this to you right at this moment, but I would still give you this benefit as a friend. But if you break this second glass, there will never be a third.

Today's my Dad's 7th day. The week was a hell to us all. I can't describe it well with words but it was fuck painful.

Just a while ago, I found the urge to bit myself for some reason, so I did it. I tore a bit of my skin. It doesn't bleed, but it stings. But the pain from my wound just fades in shame. It's no where near as painful as how we are all feeling.

I try to keep myself busy the past week by running errands and stuff to keep my mind off things yet my mom keeps on dragging me back to square one. I don't know how I should reply to her or what I should say. Because no matter what it is, it wont ease the pain.

I do not know how long this will take. Perhaps, this painful feeling wont ever leave. Ever.

The first time I slept in a while. I woke up waiting for my dad to barge in the room and yell at us to hurry our asses up for breakfast. But he didn't. I waited still, hugging my bolster pillow, until I finally realized that I'm already awake.

I wanted to go back to sleep. I want to stay there forever and I started crying again.

When I heard my brother crying again, I thought that I should stop and be strong. But it made me cry even more.

After a while, I stopped crying and thought that I should prepare and go.

Good morning.

Baby, dear. Don't say that. I know how you feel, but you have to think this through.

Right now, maybe, you think that just being with him is enough. But when you're already with him, sooner or later, you would want more. You will never be satisfied with just calling him yours. You would also want his heart, his love, his attention. But that is something you can't have. You know better than anyone that he loves someone else. So why do you need to torture yourself with more pain?

I'm never good at giving advices. But at least I could tell you this much, because I know how it feels. And I know how painful it was to be with someone who can't love you back.

We went to the hospital this morning to visit our grandma, who's currently under surveillance for a possible cancer in her throat. Apparently, there are stuff that appeared within her throat making it hard for her to eat. Therefore, she refuses to eat any food and even just drinking milk. They confined her to the hospital because she haven't been eating properly for days and she seems to be getting weaker. They're currently injecting the necessary nutrients she needs directly to her body via IV.

She seems healthier today than she was when I last saw her – last Sunday. She still doesn't seem to remember my name, but she guessed my brother's names correctly. Last week, she called me my mom's name. And this morning, she called me shoti (it means younger brother, referring to out younger brother). They said that we'll get a feedback regarding the results of her tests tomorrow. I hope it isn't cancer. :(

On a brighter note, I've got a new pair of slippers.

For weeks, I've been ranting about the sandals I recently bought with Kini. That pair of "emergency sandals" is so bad. I got bruises all over my feet just for wearing it for a few days. T_T It also has a bad history behind why I bought it – my Banana Peel flip tops broke, in the middle of the road. When that happened, I was like, "Kini, got any Mentos?" joking about how eating it would give me some bright idea of how to get out of the pathetic situation, like in the commercials. I borrowed Kini's love-love bracelet from his wife and tied my slippers with it, for a while, until I realized that I have tie tied around my hair. I used that and return Kini's bracelet before I really broke it (sorry, Kini. ^^;), and dragged him to Metro Department Store, Market! Market! (being it the nearest place from our location – in front of Joren's condo).

So anyway, Ive been wearing that shitty sandals for weeks looking for the "perfect" sandals. And I've finally found it!

Though you might find the design quite dorky (because I'm a dork), it's really soft and comfortable to wear. It only has an inch heel as opposed to the platform sandals and shoes I often wear. Oh, and don't mind my ugly feet and that very visible rash on my right foot – I get those often.

I have inspired a lot of people for different sort of things. But you know what? I've been inspired more by hundreds of different people, more than what other people seem to think, more than they think they did, and sometimes, they don't even realize they did.

In the days to come, I wanted to inspire more people and be inspired by even more – in just the most random ways I and and other people could think off. After all, it's what paints us with colors – is what I think.