Closer to Home

KC P. de Venecia
April 6, 1988-December 17, 2004

I guess you've seen the news today. The big fire. The Boss's home is a total wreck. The concrete walls of the entire second floor is now a shell for ashes. And a devastating loss no one could believe happened. I last saw her on Wednesday, and nobody had an inkling of the tragedy that was to come.
She was a vibrant teenager, a bit rebellious, typical of her age. I didn't know her well, but she was friendly when spoken to. Very strong-willed. Determined to get her own way.

Tragedy. Many have eulogized what it means, how it is overcome. In reality, we all think that it is far removed from us. We never want to think that death is near our doorstep, that life and death is the very same person. We all want to think that bad things never happen to us, that people who meet untimely deaths had a reason to leave, or that they had, in some way, deserved what was coming. Tragedy is something that happens outside, in the big, bad world.
I know better. I have had the rug pulled under my feet twice. Once, when I learned that I was my mother's bastard daughter from another man. Another was when my grandather, the man I considered to be my father, had died. Both these occassions, life was never the same for me again.
The first time, I felt relief. I felt that life finally made sense, why things were the way they were. The second time was harder. I wanted to crumple, but I had to be strong. I felt the grave responsibility of having to be the stable core of the family. I felt that if I had shown weakness, my mother and grandmother, who both had unresolved issues with my grandfather, would crumble under the burden of his death. I had to take care of the paperwork. I had to bring him from the morgue to the funeral parlor. The van which carried his remains had no partition, and I watched with wonderment as his head bobbed up and down during the journey, how something that was once alive can be dead. I always had a morbid curiosity about the duality of two opposing ideas. Life and death. Destiny and choice. It is a debate that still rages in my head as I drift off to sleep.
I was always determined to live life to the fullest and without regret. With his death, I resolved that I wanted to do just that by being the best person that I can possibly be; to be a bigger me, a force to be reckoned with. To Be Fearless, even of death. I'd like to think I'm inching towards this.

Poor KC. All I know is, that she lived life to the fullest. Maybe that was the reason why she was rebellious. I guess now, she is home. KC, Vaya Con Dios.