To Keke...

She looked at me shyly from the corner of the room. It was one of those family meeting where people were chatting, catching up with everyone. I was eating a piece of apple pie, suppresing my need to smoke. She had that questioning eye, for a moment I couldn’t remember who she was, but after a while, I finally got her.

She was my nephew, and well, she had grown up since the last time I saw her. So I walked to her and smiled at her. “Keke?”

She beamed at me and nodded. “Do you remember me, dear?” I asked.

More nodding.

I teased her, “Then tell me my name.”

She thought for a while, but I knew she remembered my name. “You’re uncle Ditto…”

I laughed and opened my arms, “Come here, hug me like you did when you were just a kid.”

She jumped at me and hugged me tight. We giggled and started to dance around as the music was playing an old song. She was full of life, the little sunshine that beamed everything with her smile.

I remembered that smile, it was radiant, it was blooming and at the same time, it was weak. A cocktail of life.

And that would be the only thing that I will remember of her, as I stood silent in front of the pile of flowers upon the wet earth that holds her forever now this morning.

Fifteen years was a short time for you, Keke… but I know you lived it with all the love you had.

Every good story always ends in tears.

Goodbye, dear.