My cousin Cristal Kaye will be graduating from kindergarten this friday, and everybody seems to be in their highest suspense until the day comes. Even when Ck was just barely months old, we knew then that this baby girl will definitely have a brain to compete with her cousins. I used to care for her for some days when she was just three years old. I was the sole yaya for her, and there was one night when i totally had mental lapses again (which, incidentally, occur every now and then) and forgot that I was taking care of this baby girl, I slept for like less than two hours and got only awakened when i received this tapping from my head. And Ck was telling me that she had made the bed upstairs, and she already brushed her teeth, and she just felt sleepy so she had to wake me up. Golly, I was amazed that she intelligently used the chair to brush her teeth, but the horror struck me when I realized that she climbed the stairs alone, damn, it has 11 steps.

It was great caring for this child that time, but it totally devastated me knowing that her father was in real bad condition in a hospital and she wouldn't be able to see him cause her mother would rather not allow her to remember anything at that situation. She was, really is, sensitive. There were times that she'd ask me if her father could still recover though we didn't totally admit to her that he was sick, and she didn't really witness how sick her father was back home. Some weeks after, she lost her dad at age 3 (i was 6 when I lost mine). I was tasked to explain everything to her (i never had the more difficult task than this one). I was never good at this, I had to call a cousin to help me with this but she turned her back cuz she couldn't hold the tears back, so I had to talk continue explaining to her, and of course there were stories of angels, etcetera etcetera. I thought she wouldn't understand anything, I could see her confusion in her eyes but at that particular moment the caskette arrived and she asked me if her dad was inside that "thing". So we knew then that she knew whatever it was that happened.

Ck was never a cry baby, she seldom cried when she was a baby, she used toilet bowl when she was one year old, she would even wake up in the middle of the night to pee at the bathroom. During the wake, she told me "masakit ang dibdib ko" ("my chest hurts"), I naturally asked why thinking that something went wrong with her health, and she replied "ate, parang naiiyak ako, nami-miss ko si daddy("I'm teary, i'm missing dad"). I had to tell her that it was "okay lang namang umiyak kaseh aalis na ang daddy mo" It's fine to cry cuz ur dad's going). She held back the tears though, she was teary eyed then, and it was terrible to see a 3-year old girl holding back the tears, knowing that she wasn' too innocent with what was happening. She would even stay beside her mom telling her not to cry any longer, I saw her cried more than once, though, when she would go inside her bedroom. I didn't know if I should be glad that she's too mature to understand everything, it's like seeing a mature young lady deeply hurt but wouldn't display real emotion.

Two years after, now comes five-year old Cristal Kaye who will soon be a grade-one student this coming school year. She will be graduating from one of the best schools in the Southern Tagalog region, competed for all the school contests in the kinder garten (always the youngest among her contenders), always active, funny really. We are all going crazy for the suspense whether she'd receive an award or not, what we just know is that she's chosen to be among those students to dance in the stage. Our aunt asked her once "ck, ano'ng sabit mo?" (what's ur medal) and she sarcastically said "eh di kaldero" (pot,what else), "eh ano ang gusto mo'ng regalo ko?"(what do u want for a gift?") "eh di isda, ilagay mo sa kaldero" (fish, whatelse, to have something for the pot)..

let's just wait and see if this one's really smart..hehe