Woe and Guilt

I can still remember the day, almost two years ago, the first time I left my family. I was inside the van. My mother is three meters away from the van. The van's window was closed. I looked at her. It was quite a long moment of stare. I felt doubts. I felt guilt. Am I conceited?

“Why am I leaving them? I am a bad son. I should stay to help them. Papang has kidney problems. Mamang has goiter. My older sister is anemic and weak. My two younger siblings were just 11 and 9 years old. I should have been the breed winner of the family. Yes! I am conceited! Though my farewell is for them, I cannot swallow the fact that I could have helped them without leaving.”

These were the subtexts that entered my mind few moments before the van left. I was thinking of recanting my decision of studying at UP — go outside the van, take my big bags out, ask the van driver for a fare refund and go back home. I thought of a very dramatic scenario. I remembered my fifteen years of stay with them. I remembered the child that once in the arms of his mother, now trying to live in his own arms. . .