When Goodnight Becomes a Permanent Goodbye

One Sunday photo taken inside La Porteria church of Calabanga.

During visits and homecomings, I always want to leave the parting word of goodnight. In that way, I can look forward to the next morning in full hope with a sense of things and environ unchanged. Goodnight is more romantic, poetic, expectant and hopeful. Goodbye is like shutting the door behind our back, so it seems. Goodbye has a connotation of finality.

Looking back I now conclude, the last goodnight I have uttered during my visit of relatives in the urban town of Taytay (province of Rizal) was actually a goodbye, then, for one. It was true to Uncle Allan who expired in the first hour of the morning of Friday this weekend from a quick illness he had been trapped into. He celebrated his birthday July 7th.

Family and relatives alike will no doubt miss him.

Less than two decades ago, my aunt met him in Riyadh, KSA. Both of them overseas contract workers. The oil-rich middle eastern country became the setting of their romance. It marked the beginning of a meaningful relationship that led them to union. They had no idea it will last until the past weekend.

Goodnight and Vaya con Dios, uncle.

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