Teni Nyca A

For as long as I could remember, I have always believed that God subtly answers your prayer and guides you through the people around you. This is truer today for me than most days.

When something sad happens in my life like a loved one leaving, I don't dwell on it that much. I prefer to forget or deny that fact and do what I always do - to try to live life the best way I believe I should. Today, I woke up from a supposedly 30-minute nap, an hour late. As much as I don't want to word it this way..., on the 46th day of my grandma's death, I dreamt of her.

I've been struggling for the past months about a personal problem. I seem like my normal self but it keeps me awake at night. Passingly, I shared it with my friends when I sort of got over it. And a day or two ago, somebody from my college allegedly did what I had intended to do although I would have chosen the less painful way to go.

In my dream, I was with someone and we were in my hometown. My grandma asked us to go somewhere near the palengke for some odd reason which got me grumbling over it. When we got home, my lola was waiting for us with 2 of my cousins and my younger self at her back who were oblivious to her presence.

I cannot articulate the words like how she does, but she said, "Alam niyo ba kung saan kayo dumaan?"

Baffled, I answered, "Sa roundball?"

"Ang roundball no, kahit ma-stuck ka, madami kang choices kung saan ka dadaan"

After the conversation, my cousins looked at me weirdly as to why I was talking to thin air and asked if I was talking to lola. I answered, "Of course, ilang days na kami nag-uusap ah? Sinamahan niya pa nga ako kanina maglakad hanggang dun". Even in my dream I am in denial. For the nth time, the truth slapped me that she was not here anymore - that what I thought was our normal routine was not.

"Bakit? Bakit ako lang makakita sayo?"
She smiled and looked at the distance, "You know, kahit nandun na ako, I always pray to God to let me live a little longer"

I believe this is God's answer to my predicament. I am the type of person who has everything planned out. I do what I do today because I have a vision and when something does not go as I had mapped it out, I get stuck and cannot think of any other way than the way I have planned. I have an inkling that I might be a perfectionist because you might say, "madami ka pa namang choices ah" pero no. I don't work that way. I don't work that way but God throws these "failures" in my plans that constantly forces me out of my comfort zone to take another track. It breaks my heart every single time to bend my will but I believe God is breaking me in the right places so I could be whole again in the right time.

Cheers to our God who works mysteriously in our lives and to my lola who continues to "yawyaw" from heaven although di na pwede paulit ulit kasi may time limit lang dreams ko🍷