Happy Birthday Ate Wil!

This is for my sister, Wilma. I'm so happy to know that she reads my blogs. I know she's my number 1 fan. What she doesn't is that I'm her number 1 fan, too.

I think she's about 15 years older than me. I won't go deeper on the details 'coz that would reveal her exact age and so as mine. 

We haven't really spent too much time together because she had to go the US when I was 9. We had few memories together, too few that I could even use my fingers to count them, but all will be treasured forever.

• I was there when she graduated. I was 6 or maybe 7 years old. I think we ate at a Chinese restaurant called Star Cafe (It's family tradition --- birthdays, graduations or any other special day ~ it has to be Star Cafe). That time, I didn't know what graduation meant. I just had to go to the crowded Burgos Gym of SLU and wait for my sister's name to be called. 

• After passing her exams, my sister had to work in Manila. For me, that meant waiting and expecting Goldilocks cakes (brazodemercedes) and sweets (pulvoron) every time she comes back to Baguio.

• She came home one day and she had bandages all over her nose. Worried and concerned little me asked her what happened and she said she had an accident! Now, older and wiser me knows the truth! (your secret is safe with me ... heheheh)

• When she had to migrate to the US, I was so excited because that was my first time to go to Manila, stay at a hotel, go to SM Megamall, go to the airport, and visit Nayong Filipino. Later, I realized that her leaving the country meant I wouldn't be seeing her for years.

• She had a vacation when I was in the 6th grade. I felt kinda cool in school 'coz I had a troll whose eyes lit up when you push its belly button and I was the only one who had a big bulky colorful Trapper Keeper!

• She got married in the US (without us) and she came home when I was in college with my then li'l cute niece, Michelle. It's strange but I can't remember a lot about that vacation except that she was so patient with Michelle. When the li'l miss cried out loud, my sister would put her on the stroller and push it around the garage/garden until she stops or falls asleep!

• She came back to have a church wedding, with a bit bigger and much more talkative Michelle and her husband, Kuya Jun. It was during this vacation that she met my then boyfriend, now husband, Chard. She was the first person in my family to meet him. The dinner we had with her will always be a much treasured memory of me and my husband. 

• The next time I saw her was the saddest event of our lives. It was when our father died. I was the one who broke the news to her. My husband and I were the ones who fetched her from the airport. On our way home, she told me she's glad I turned out all right. She said that she can't believe I'm all grown up with a  husband and with a daughter. She said, in her memory, I will always be that li'l 9 year old she left years ago. 

She may not have been there while I was growing but she has always been a sister to me ...

Happy Birthday ate Wil! I wish you'd win the lotto so that you could come home and build a house here and then we'd be neighbors!