Kumusta Ka, Papa (Today, I Miss You More)

Today, I miss Papa more than usual.

I miss him so much that no amount of tears and no string of words can make sense of the ache in my heart. It's the kind of missing that sits in your chest and stays, quiet and heavy, all day.

I miss having someone in my corner.

Papa had a way of telling me I was doing fine. And on the days I wasn't, he told me that was okay too. He reminded me that I could make mistakes, because making mistakes is human. I didn't have to win all the time. Most of all, I didn't have to fight all the time.

I didn't know how much I needed to hear that until there was no one left to say it the way he did.

Right now I'm listening to his song, Kumusta Ka. I picked the FPJ version on purpose. I had no idea FPJ could sing until Papa played it for me. In the same way, I had no idea Papa could sing until the day he sang this song himself. I can still remember being surprised, and I can still remember his voice. Every time the song plays, it feels like he's asking me the question himself: Kumusta ka, 'nak?

And honestly, Pa, I'm trying.

I miss you every day, but today I miss you more.

I wish you were here to tell me everything will be okay. I wish you could do it the way you did when I was little and got hurt, when you kissed the pain away and somehow, it really did stop hurting. I'm older now, and the hurts are bigger and harder to explain. I still wish you could kiss them away.

What I have now are your words, your song, and the way you loved me. I carry them with me. When things get hard, I try to hear you saying it's okay to rest and okay not to win, and that I'm doing fine.

I hope I'm making you proud, Papa.

I love you. I miss you. Kumusta ka na?

To anyone reading this who is missing someone today: you're not alone. Some days the grief is louder than usual, and that's okay. It's love that has nowhere to go.

Undas: Where Faith, Family, and Filipino Tradition Meet

 

Every November 1 and 2, my family goes home to remember. 🕯️

I grew up going to the farm in Bohol with my parents, carrying flowers and candles and listening to the grown-ups trade stories in the warm afternoon. As a child, I thought it was simply a family reunion with good food. It took me years to understand that I was being taught something sacred: that love does not stop at the grave.

Today, I am the one leading my son Sam to Cebu to visit his Grandpa's tomb. He never had the chance to meet him, but I make sure he hears the stories. This is Undas, one of the most cherished traditions in the Philippines, and for our family, it is a promise we keep every year.

The Faith Behind the Tradition

In the Roman Catholic Church, the two days carry distinct meanings:

• All Saints' Day (November 1): Honors all saints, known and unknown, who have attained heaven. It is a Holy Day of Obligation, and Catholics attend Mass to celebrate the communion of saints.

• All Souls' Day (November 2): Dedicated to praying for the faithful departed, especially those believed to be in purgatory. Masses, rosaries, and prayers are offered for their rest.

Both days rest on a beautiful belief: the bond between the living and the dead is never broken. The faithful on earth, the souls being purified, and the saints in heaven remain united in prayer.

How Filipinos Observe Undas

Every family adds its own warmth to these sacred days, and ours is no different:

• Visiting the Departed: Families travel from cities and abroad to return to their hometowns and visit the graves of loved ones.

• Cleaning and Decorating: Tombs are cleaned, repainted, and adorned with flowers, usually chrysanthemums and sampaguita.

• Lighting Candles: Candles symbolize prayer, remembrance, and the light of eternal life.

• Praying Together: Families pray the rosary, recite novenas, and attend Mass at the cemetery or the parish.

• Sharing Food: Meals are shared at the cemetery or at home, turning the day into a reunion filled with stories and laughter.

• Pangangaluluwa: In some regions, an older custom where people sing from house to house, asking for prayers for souls in purgatory.

Why It Matters to Us

For me, Undas is where Filipino values come alive:

• Pagmamahal sa Pamilya: Love for family extends beyond the grave. My Papa, my Tatay, and my grandparents are still very much part of our stories, our table, and our laughter.

• Paggalang: Respect for those who came before us is taught through action. Whenever I see kindness around me, I am reminded of Papa, and I glow with pride to be his daughter.

• Pananampalataya**: Faith gives us comfort that death is not the end, but a passage toward eternal life.

Passing the Tradition On

Now there are three little ones in our family: Sam, who is 8, and baby Maple and Simon, who are 2 and 1. They may not fully understand yet why we light candles or why we speak softly beside a tomb. But they are watching, just as I once did, and one day they will understand.

My hope is that they carry this tradition in their hearts and pass it on to their own children. Because Undas is not just a visit to a gravesite. It is a gathering of generations, a quiet act of faith, and a reminder that love, respect, and family endure until eternal life.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen. 🤍

Extra Shot

The warmth in your cup and the warmth in your eyes come together as one. They swirl like caramel folding into steamed milk, slow golden ribbons that unravel my quiet Thursday afternoon and scatter it like loose change. Words cannot describe what you stir in me, the soft electric hum you pour into my steady, careful world the moment you sit down beside me.

I lean in close, and sip from the cup we share, letting the sweetness coat my tongue like melted silk, breathing deep the bittersweet steam that rises and goes straight to my head. Your teasing smile pulls me into your orbit, and wraps me in something softer than words. "So this is how we taste each other's lips," you laugh, and the joke hangs in the air between us, bright and trembling, until the laughter thins and the quiet moves in.

I stand before you, so close that the café dissolves at its edges, the hiss of the espresso machine, the clink of spoons, the ticking clock all blurring into a distant tide. I almost forget how to breathe. My pulse becomes a drumbeat against my ribs, and every second stretches thin as spun sugar, as if time were pouring itself slowly from a broken hourglass.

Then your lips meet mine, and the world tips. The kiss is caramel and warmth, sweet at first and then deeper, a slow current that pulls me under and carries me out where the light is soft and gold and nothing has edges. My hands find you. Your cold fingers trace a shiver along my spine that grows into a rumbling quake, leaving me befuddled and bemused and wholly, helplessly willing.

And just when I think we can't drift any higher, the floor falls away and I'm falling, arms spread wide, wind roaring past my ears, a soft and glorious fall into clouds that rush up to meet me. The kiss deepens. Your hands in my hair, your breath against my throat, my name sounding different in your mouth, softer, like a secret you've been saving. We move together the way the drink did, slow and golden and warm, until the afternoon melts into evening and the evening into something even softer, and the world beyond us becomes a rumor we no longer believe.

When we finally part, it's only by an inch. We breathe each other's air, foreheads touching, grinning like two people who have stolen something beautiful and have no intention of giving it back. The sweetness lingers on my tongue, and the hungry part of me, the part that never learns, already wants more. Promises meant to be broken are whispered and believed completely, for now.

You reach for the cup, lift it to my lips once more, and smile.

Of course, this is only a memory imagined, a fragment from a writer's wandering imagination, a daydream dressed up as a recollection, with a café that may never have existed and a Thursday that belongs entirely to fiction. 😉

I Brought a Pillow Fort to a Hug Fight

The unofficial sequel to "The Grief That Wears a Smile," now with 100% more pouting

Plot twist: that moody little post I wrote about grief wearing a smile? It was also wearing a very dramatic trench coat. 🕵️‍♀️ It was honest, it was heavy, and it was only half the story.

The other half? I was worried. Not poetic, candlelit, staring-out-the-window worried, but the restless, helpless kind that has nowhere to go. And here's what I figured out: worry is exhausting, because it keeps you standing at attention with nothing to fight. Wallowing, on the other hand, comes with a blanket. So my heart, being the clever little troublemaker it is, chose the blanket. I wrote the post, hit publish, and called it grief.

Then came a conversation that cleared the air, and suddenly my dramatic masterpiece felt a bit like showing up to a picnic in full armor. I thought about deleting it. I really did. But I left it up, and I still can't tell you why. Pride, maybe. Curiosity, maybe. A tiny, sneaky test I didn't admit to myself, definitely.

Because I was waiting for the reaction. And I had prepared, of course. I expected the argument, the cold shoulder, the "excuse me?" I had my pillow fort built and my defenses stocked like a kid bracing for a lecture.

Instead, I got pulled closer. No speech. No scoreboard. Just a calm little comment and a whole lot of warmth. I showed up ready for a battle and got handed a hug instead. Honestly? Rude. 😅

And the funniest part is that, deep down, I'd been trying to find reasons to like that person less, as if a few flaws might make the worry hurt a little softer. Spoiler: it backfired spectacularly. Nothing makes you fall harder than being met with kindness when you were behaving like a prickly little cactus.

So here's what I know now. Sometimes the sulking, the sarcasm, and the suspiciously timed posts aren't anger at all. They're just fear in a brat's costume, whispering please don't go in a very unconvincing villain voice.

My old post said, "Let yourself feel it, even if no one else understands." Here's the sequel: sometimes someone does understand, and the bravest, softest thing you can do is let them hold on.

Even if you were being a brat about it. 🤍

Look How Far the Water Has Carried You

A letter to myself, two Octobers later

Two Octobers ago, the tide was heavy. I remember how every wave felt like a question I didn't have the answer to. Today, I'm standing on a different shore, and when I turn to look back, I can hardly believe the distance between that version of me and this one.

I want to pause here, not to dwell on what was, but to honor how far I've come.

What the Water Taught Me

For a long time, I believed that being good meant giving endlessly: showing up for everyone, carrying everything, pouring from a cup I never thought to refill. That season taught me otherwise. The ocean doesn't give to the shore by emptying itself. It rises and falls, takes in and gives back, and it is always, always in relationship with itself first.

That became my lesson: I must come home to myself before I can offer myself to the world. Putting myself first was never selfish. It was the foundation. A light cannot warm a room if it has burned itself out in the dark.

The Quiet Strength of Resilience

Resilience, I've learned, isn't loud. It rarely looks like a dramatic triumph. More often, it looks like getting up and trying again, softening when I wanted to harden, and trusting that the current knows where it's going even when I can't see the horizon.

And here is the truth I keep returning to: I made it because I always do. Not because the road was easy, but because something in me has always known how to keep moving toward the light. That isn't luck. It's who I am.

The People Who Made the Waves Gentler

No one crosses the sea entirely alone. Since that October, I have been blessed with people who arrived like favorable winds, who made the journey lighter, more meaningful, and so much easier than it would have been on my own.

To each of you: thank you. You may never know how much a kind word, a shared laugh, or a quiet presence carried me forward. You turned a hard season into a story worth telling.

A Note to Future Me

If you're reading this on a day when the water feels heavy again, remember:

You have crossed this before. The proof is in every mile behind you.

Rest is part of the journey. Calm waters are not a sign you've stopped moving.

Come home to yourself first. Everything else flows from there.

Gratitude steadies the boat. Look at who is sailing beside you.

So here's to the tides that taught me, the shores that welcomed me, and the horizon still waiting.

Look how far the water has carried you. And you're only just beginning.