I found you. (Short story)

                        It was almost spring, in the tied-up city of Chicago, Illinois. An old lady parked her worn-out 1967 Chevrolet Impala in front of an antique shop, couple of miles away from her house. She's planning to look for an oriental style coffee table. Since a few weeks ago her grand kids accidentally broke her coffee table while running around the house. She entered the store and started looking. It has been an hour of looking around, but she haven't decided yet what she's going to get. The available coffee tables doesn't fit her price range. She's getting hot-tempered and grouchy. Luckily, the sales assistant is being patient to her. 

"There's nothing here I like!" she said in a very cranky tone.

"You can wait for a couple of days, Ma'am. Probably we can offer you more selections when our new items arrives from China." 

"Don't even bother, I have enough breakable junk in my house." the old lady replied.

                      She's ready to go, and look someplace else. She walked towards the exit door, then something caught her attention. It was an elegant, appealing old urn. It was an outstanding, uniquely made, large Moroccan urn. It was hand tooled lead, and the design is exquisite. She asked the saleslady how much the urn cost; it cost six hundred dollars. Perhaps she can buy two coffee table in that price, but it didn't matter because the urn captured her eyes. It seem like the urn is the "missing decor" that needs to be in her house. 

"I'll take the urn; it will look good in my bookshelf." 

                       Finally, she got home then eagerly told her two granddaughters and her husband about the adventure she had today at the antique shop. She let the urn sit in her bookshelf. The urn gives her joy and liveliness whenever she looked at it. The urn felt so right; she's never going to get rid of it. 

                          One typical afternoon, her youngest grand kid is getting books from her shelf. The kid was unhandy and clumsy; she knocked off the urn. It didn't break, but what they saw is more shocking and discomforting. 

"Grandma! There's ashes!!! There's ashes inside your weird vase!!!" the kid said hysterically.

                     There was ashes inside the urn. The old lady felt in her gut that she needs to know who's ashes are they? Why it was inside her favorite urn? 

                       She called the antique shop and demanded to talk to the store's manager. The shop didn't know either, but they offered the item to be returned. The lady didn't agree to it, she had a very strong liking to the urn. By the way of explanation, she loved the urn. She took matters in her own hands and attempts to to find out "who's inside the urn?". Two months of searching the Internet, achieves and obituaries, she did not have any lead to whom the ashes belong. 

                       "Who are you?" she said as she picked up the urn and looked at it closely. She noticed that something is engraved at the bottom part of the urn. She have a poor vision, so she called her grand daughter and let her read what is carved in the urn. 

--- I FOUND YOU ---

                         Her jaw dropped, her heart stopped and she started to cry. 

___________________

 AUGUST, 1955, MANILA,PHILIPPINES 

Boy: "United States is a million miles from here."

Girl: "What's gonna happen to us since I'm moving away? I love you.. and there's no way I can live without you. I don't want to lose you." 

Boy: "I'm not worried."

Girl: "Why?" *crying*

Boy: "I WILL ALWAYS FIND YOU, AND I WILL NEVER STOP LOOKING FOR YOU. YOU'RE NAME IS ENGRAVED IN MY HEART. MAYBE THE TIMING ISN'T RIGHT NOW, BUT I WILL SEE YOU IN THE NEXT LIFETIME."