I might just fall

It’s lightning and thundering again. I rush to my room. I left the windows open again. I don’t want my magazines that I keep under that window to get wet. I open the screens and reach out but I opened the window too wide this morning because it was so hot. As I struggle against the strong wind, and keeping the screen from banging painfully on me, I look down. I live on the 20th floor. If I fall I will surely be dead. Then people will think I committed suicide even if I actually just lost my balance and fell.

But that didn’t happen. My magazines are dry. I look out at the gray sky and think: This weather is what I remember when I was young, only then it would hit in May. I remember those summer days when it was hot during the day and then at around three in the afternoon there would be thunder and lightning and rain, wonderful cooling rain. Then, as now, I still find these rains romantic. The sound of big water drops falling on the window glass, watching the drops trickle down, knowing I am so far up, wondering if just one day, when a really big typhoon hits, I might just fall.

I remember a summer when a cousin and I had a crush on a young man, older than both of us, who drove around on a red scooter. He would come over after a rain when the world looked and smelled fresh and clean. I wonder where he is now. Is he still alive? One of his close friends died a few years ago. I guess that’s what it feels like to get old. You have many friends who have crossed over and you miss them.

Two weeks ago, my friend Felix passed away. Last Sunday just when I brought home my son from a Father’s Day lunch hosted by his sister, my cell phone rang. It was one of my close friends. She said, “Did you know that Greg died?” “Greg who?” I asked, not even imagining that it was my good buddy Greg, who had made me laugh all these years, with whom I had so many breakfasts, exchanged so many Christmas and birthday gifts. Didn’t I just see him last March when he turned 60? And, please, 60 is too young for a man to die. “What are you talking about?” I asked.

But it was my good friend Greg. I rushed over to Heritage to condole with his children, with Ana, his oldest daughter whom I had taught to write; and with Loida, his wife, another friend of mine. I saw him lying in state and while he looked like Greg, he wasn’t the Greg I knew. The life had gone. The easy, charming smile was gone. He was gone and let me say my heart was broken again.

Joe, his mentor and good friend, said that when someone called to tell him Greg had gone he was in a bookstore and found himself sitting on the floor from shock. On my way out one of the ladies stopped me and showed me her necklace. It was one I had made. “He gave it to me,” she said, “and I wear it all the time.”

Greg was a really kind and gentle man and all his friends loved him. In my mind I see him in jeans and a plain white misshapen T-shirt and slippers. Other times in khaki Bermuda shorts and the same misshapen T-shirt and slippers. In my mind he is alive and smiling still. I want to remember him that way forever.

And there’s another friend I have been planning to write since I found out he had Lou Gehrig’s disease — that’s a disease that doesn’t affect the brain but the muscles. Most likely he cannot walk or talk but otherwise, he is alert. He understands what is happening to him and for me that is the full tragedy of his condition. This man I have known since I was around 15. We went to parties together. He danced the boogie very well. Whenever we saw each other we would dance the boogie. He was tall, much taller than me.

I last saw him maybe five or six years ago when I was still selling at the Legaspi Market. He came over and we had lunch, caught up on old times. Then one night he invited me and another friend Ed to go out. We went to dinner and had lots and lots of wine. We were joking, laughing, remembering the times when we were young. And now here we are. We are old.

Maybe it’s grief that makes me think about falling out of my window. It makes me wonder — when will I go too? And, God, when you take me, please take me like Greg. Let me just sleep and not wake up. Or maybe you can push me out of my window? Please?

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