My friend in Manila, Maria Potente has a kid sister called Grace. She is old enough to be called a woman (the kid I mean) but her behaviour is that of an errant child. I am told she is into drugs and stuff.
The closest I have been to drugs was when in Singapore the cops suspected that I was on drugs (seeing my drunken behaviour) and dragged me to the hospital for a blood test. It turned out to be a false alarm and they let me go the next morning. I ended up spending a night in custody. You will see this in my blog – One night in custody. [Someone I know asked, on reading it: Why are you bragging about the incident? I said that experience is one of the things that made me what I am now, so I blogged; I don’t think I was bragging.]
So one day Grace ended up in jail and Maria refused to bail her out, at first. She did get her released later and Grace came home, it seems, for a while. There after she just upped and went off (back to the streets).
You would think that the pun in the title of this post is off color. Not so. Isn’t it graceful to leave home when one is not fitting into that style. Recently I was talking a woman who seemed interested in marrying me. [That fizzled out, but let me not jump...]
As we went along conversing, over weeks, I realized that I am not cut out for domestic, married existence. I cannot cope with so-called civil society. I have wild views on things and a wilder approach to living. So after a point, I decided to exit gracefully from the discussion. Ho hum!
So did Grace, maybe? Realizing the streets are where she belongs, not wishing to give more worry to her sis Maria, she probably decided to exit not to be seen ever after?
In the meantime, Maria Potente awaits her sister’s come back. I don’t think she is actively looking for her all over Manila’s dark streets, but she will own her sis when she does come back. Gracefully.
Here is praying with Maria for Grace’s return home.
I sent this text to Maria Potente and asked if I should go ahead and publish it. In response, she said yes and sent me this touching tale of her kid sister, who seemed to have died, and risen, and then again maybe died?
Grace , when she was a little girl, epitomized her name. Fair skin, tentative but sweet smile, loving gaze, always eager to listen and to give everything she has without expectations. Until drugs put her in so much disgrace. I barely knew her anymore. In her last brush with the law for drugs, i let her stay in jail for a year, ...
When i thought it was time to bail her out after a year, for two weeks i felt like she was risen from the dead, like she died many years ago and lived again, taking off from where she left off as Grace, my little sister. But as vicious as they say drugs could be, she lost in her struggle to fight the urge to jump off the dark pit again. She died many years ago, was risen, only to die again.
Couple of months ago, while driving to work and tuned in to the local radio, a newsbreak said of a petite, unidentified woman in her late twenties, discovered sprawling by a roadside with a bullet in her head , in an area notorious for drug dealing. The woman wasnt from there but would frequent the place for drug use and dealing. The report said her name was Grace. She is 42 but looks a lot younger. [I have seen her pictures in her 30s and she looked a teenager – ShankR]
I went to the police station nervously asking about the woman's identity. I wanted to know but I didnt want to know. They couldnt recall by memory and the record of the incident was vague, as incidents like that was not uncommon. They remember better the more gruesome killings. Who would care to thoroughly document deaths of unidentified addicts? I felt relieved. [And so there is a potential come back, rising from the pits again, to normalcy and domicile existence? ShankR]
I am not sure about what to think, what to feel and what to do. Maybe i refuse to know?
[Maria signs off as follows (for more than a decade that I have known her:]
"Think of happy thoughts"
[Think happy thoughts – ShankR]
