WB kuya Joel!

Yesterday while I was having my usual moments of silence, while I was thinking and keeping myself busy doing nothing I received a surprise call. I was ecstatic. Kuya Joel is back! I talked loudly over the phone while I interrogated him about the details of his arrival. He is really full of surprises.

Just recently I have been getting worried since I haven’t heard from him for quite sometime. The last thing I knew about him was that he already wanted to come home. After that he wasn’t texting or replying to my messages on YM even if he was online via sms.

I was hyper while talking to him. I asked him questions incessantly then suddenly he halted me. He told me “Easy lang”. I was really glad to hear his signature lines again after more than a year.

I must have really missed him. He is the youngest son in the family. He is not just a brother but also a friend and tropa to me.

He came back here in Manila the other day after working for a year in General Motors in Doha Qatar. He is now in his own family that he hasn’t formally introduced to us in Bulacan.

He promised to come by here in Manila this week. I really would like to see him and get to know her wife and son.

Maybe I got excited, later on, some of my fondest memories of him flashed in my mind again just like a movie.

Before when we were both in elementary, when classes end our parents bring us along with them in our house in San Ildefonso. San Ildefonso is more commonly called as Dalugan.It is an island in the Casiguran Sound. One time, being small kids then, I and Kuya Joel had a fight. We had a disagreement that led to a fist fight. I cant remember anymore if i really did get hurt but i cried aloud and said “di ako makahinga, tubig…” until now i can still picture in my mind how he looked like that moment. He stopped, his face flushed white. He hurriedly took a glass of water and gave it to me. Ten seconds later I was well and very much ok again. He said “umaarte ka lang yata, patubig tubig ka pa dyan!” haha..naisahan ko siya.

Then when I was in Grade two and he was in grade four if i remember it right I had a boy classmate who kept on bullying me. His name was “Pindot”. I reported the boy to him. Then one time, during recess, he with his classmate Joric “assaulted” the boy. From then on Pindot never ever messed up with me again.

As we got older, when I moved to Baler for my high school, we began to meet seldom. Out mother always complains that he is “masyadong mabarkada, di nag-aaral ng mabuti”

From before until today there are many things that haven’t changed about Kuya Joel. He is down to earth and maybe he’s got charm thus he has countless friends whose age ranges from 0-70. He is naturally good natured. Every time he comes home in our own village in Casiguran his schedule is always full. From picnics to inuman to sabong. The notorious elderly sabungeros in Bianuan adore him. He is lucky in sabong. My parents attribute it to the fact that he was born enveloped in a sac.

When he wasn’t there his friends keep on asking our parents when he’ll be back.

I treasure the moments that we’ve shared. The times that he would invite me in “Sargo” to play billiards with him when he has no one else to play with. When he went away he left his beloved cue stick to me.

Kuya Joel didn’t go to college. He had a vocational course and fortunately he immediately began to earn money. But he did want to study but he wanted to do it in a big university here in Manila. But because of the reputation that he’s made for himself in terms of studying and the strict financial circumstances that we’re in our parents didn’t let him. The choice they’re giving him was ascot but since maarte siya he chose the vocational course.

When he started his apprenticeship in GM Shaw through our another brother and had big names under the list of his clients maybe he got contented and didn’t pursue further studies anymore. When I was in first year in college, it was an English class, he texted me. He said”Pam, katabi ko si John Lloyd. Road test ko Suburban nya”. I thought siguro kinikilig din siya kay John Lloyd just like me kaya tinex nya ako.

Another funny thing about him is when he becomes very talkative, when he will tell a lot of stories, I or our elder sister had to beware because before the conversation ends uutangan nya kami.haha..

Until last year he went to Doha. He said he will not come back there anymore, instead, he’ll try his luck in Australia.

Time really flies. It seems like its only yesterday that we were like little ita boy and ita girl swimming day in day out while throwing seaweeds to each other or walking through the coral reefs of Dalugan, and now, he already has a family of his own.

Welcome back kuya Joel, pasalubong ko..dami ka utang sakin.haha..♥♥♥