Jairus Jason would have been Twenty-eight today, and I’d be on my thirtieth 360-degree spin the world over in a few hours a time. He was born on April 23, 1983 and he died on the same day, the eve of my second birthday.
For many years, I’ve been writing for me, which made everything I wrote excusable, self-serving and therefore in vain. So when I write around this time, I didn’t write as myself. I wrote my life, with you living it. Openly and unnoticeably since as I started writing as you, I’ve been ritually whispering my life into a hollow but I choose not to cover it with mud. All this is a just another grain of sand in nearly innumerable grains of sand, but this way it might have been less vain and it would have mattered more.
And yes, I wrote life as-is and honestly, as I know you wouldn’t have been perfect either, my brother.
This is the concept of both our eternal recurrence. To no longer waste away in selfish vanity. This is for both of us, and not just for both of us, but for our brothers. How you would have loved Kuya Ogie and Lloyd. How you would loved our Parents. How you would have loved our family, children, relatives. How I loved Dyaneh with a love that is certain, with a love that knows no bounds. How you would have loved Juan Iñigo.
We live our lives not just as our own.
Happy Birthday, my brother.
