two years

Time is a brisk wind, for each hour it brings something new...
but who can understand and measure its sharp breath,
its mystery and its design?
--Paracelsus

the last time i saw him was two years ago, but i doubt if he could remember. i even held him close to me because i knew that it would take awhile before we would meet again, but i doubt if he could remember. that last encounter was just like our first encounter -- brief and gone too soon. nevertheless, i don't regret having held him for even just a moment and i was glad he was there, but i doubt if he could remember. i did not and i do not expect him to. two years is a long time, after all.

i... i never forgot him though. until now, i wonder how he's doing and how the time we've spent apart has changed him. for quite awhile, i never heard from nor about him -- no word, no pictures -- until two weeks ago...

two weeks ago, he sang for me over the phone. the gesture was too sweet and hearing him made me cry -- his was the sincerest and cutest voice i've ever heard over my phone.

"A... B... C... D..."

hearing kenj sing out the letters of the alphabet to me gave the ABC song a whole new meaning. see, kenj is the two-year old son of my college friend, joyce, and he is my first inaanak. (hmmm, what were you thinking?)

the last time i saw kenj was when he was still a wee baby, when i carried him in my arms and watched him sleep. he is now a smart babbling toddler who is game enough to sing ABC to "te val" over the phone. he may not remember nor recognize me right away when we get to see each other again, and i may have missed his teething, his first walk, his haircuts, his smiles, and personally witnessing his childish wisdom... but i remember him... i'll remember him

...and i'll surely remember his rendition of the ABC song. i bet my lotto winnings, no american idol can outdo him in singing that one! (and simon cowell will have to die first before he can insult kenj, hehehe. sira.)