Wearing My Smile | ✔

Sunday, January 6th, 2008

Nine months after your funeral.
Today.

I am packing my clothes and my things to leave. I wonder if I'm ever going to go back into this house. Every corners of it is filled with the memories of the time I'd spent with you. It hurts me to stay. I still see you sometimes, you know, laughing at the television on the couch of my living room, even though I know you're not here anymore. I still have to go through the therapy sessions and my disorder is not going to go away so quickly. It's a progress. Please understand that I don't blame you for what you did, Sam, I just wish you were here.

I am leaving your violin, still wrapped tight in its case on top of the table of my room. It’s the only thing I can’t bear to bury with everything else.

Know that this is the end of my letter for you, Sam, because I intend to leave everything here, in my old house, and that means I am not taking this letter with me as I go either. I will bury these pages under the root of that tree at my backyard, right beside where we used to bury our time capsule. It's been more than half a year, the pain is still there, but I am slowly getting used to it now and I'm sure if you'd been here you would have told me to move on with my life already, so I will. After this, I promise I will.

The mental illness and abuse awareness program is going well. My mind is open with the possibility of making it bigger once I arrive in my new university. I am accepted in University of Victoria with full scholarship for psychology major, can you believe that? Of course, you can. You believe in me more than I believe in myself, isn't that what you said?

I went to the university twice in the past six months to do a seminar regarding my project. I won the best kickstarter project which was approved by a lot of professors and investors. I have been receiving calls from all over asking me for partnership. I don't know yet what I'm going to do next, but I'm thinking about it as I go. I'm sure you'll approve this choice. I could help more people this way, rather than following my father as a professional photographer. I will still do it as hobby. I'm not losing anything, I swear, I'm just choosing the better option.

The last time I stood right before those people who were so much better than me, my hands no longer shook. I stuttered once or twice, but I held my head up and talked, Sam. I told them stories: about people, about children, about ones who were hiding and ones who were overly upfront, about myself, then about you.

I told them about you, the good parts and the bad parts, as ones I'd written inside this letter and I swear, I swear, Sam, it felt great. I felt an enormous relief of telling them how you lived, how this way you will still be living inside their minds because somebody should know. It couldn't be just me. Someone needed to know how kind you were, how you think of my needs before your own, how lonely you were, how isolated, how you longed to have a sibling so you could relate to your family, how you loved unconditionally, how tortured you were, how you could be happy if you let yourself to, and most importantly, how human you were. I told them all of these—these memories upon memories which I kept locked neatly inside my treasure box, only to be opened when I was missing you too much.

I let them listen. I let them relate themselves to you and believe of second chances, or third, or fourth, however many times they needed. I didn't tell them what you did in the end. They didn't have to know, but I think it's okay if they do. Anyway, this was just how I wanted people to know you, Sam, as my strong and kind best friend, as how you were inside my mind, forever and always.

People stood for an ovation each time I finished talking and I watched their faces, filled with so much hope that I hurt, but I didn't let them see. This wasn't about me. This was about making something better for others, about making life better for people like us, like you, and I was okay with this. This was what I wanted, what you would have wanted.

Standing on that stage, I could picture you, Sam. Sitting at the back seat of the room wearing my smile, grinning that playful and proud grin of yours as you watched me. I could picture you rising up and it was so vivid that I felt like if I could just run to where you were I could gather you in my arms. I would tell you this was where we should have been. I would tell you to come home with me again and we would watch that superhero movie over a bowl of popcorn and laugh until our throats hurt.

You're listening? Hey, Sam, Sam, are you listening to me now? Can you see me?

We made it.

We made it.