Goodbye, My Friend

Los Banos Outing
Breakfast at Something Fishy

I lost a very good friend early this year. I've been meaning to write about him, but I couldn't bring myself to it. But these days, I miss his friendship terribly. We were both division heads under one department and we shared the same values and attitude towards work. Our friendship was grounded on how we were always idealistic about how we can make a difference in our workplace. We were each other's "cheer leader" in everything we did at work. We had adjoining offices and we would usually take our coffee and lunch breaks together with some of our staff. In fact, it was him who brought our department closer. He organized an outing in Los Banos, and breakfast and lunch outs from time to time. Our favorite bonding activity would be breakfast at Something Fishy in Eastwood and lunch at Marikit-na in Metrowalk.

Last year, I was really feeling down about a lot of things, and I didn't really tell him why, but he really is a good friend. I'm not sure if he felt that I was having a difficult time, but he surely went out of his way to make sure that I was ok.

But the best thing that I remember about him would be that he was someone you know who would be there for you no matter what. He was someone you can count on for support, but would not expect anything in return. I miss him now. I realize that there is no one else who can understand how I feel about work and how I am with the people I work with. I just regret that I didn't let him know how his friendship meant to me when he was here.

I never had the chance to say goodbye, too. We visited him in the hospital the day before he died but he wasn't in a condition to see visitors by then.

So now I say goodbye...

To my friend Nonie, thank you for everything.