Raul

My dad broke to us the news that Raul, a cousin of mine, confined in a hospital, is nearing death. Sad news, isn't it? Not for me.

You see, this cousin of mine is no ordinary cousin. He is a major pain in the butt. He is more than ten years older than I am, and he grew up in my paternal grandma's house because his mom is, well, a crazy (literally) vagabond. He was with them since he was a toddler, and my dad and his brothers really grew fond of him. The family provided for him like they would the other children. They gave him everything he needed, sent him to school. Everything came to him on a silver platter.

But he got hooked to his barkada and to drugs. He stopped going to school, stole valuable items in my grandma's house and sells them to sustain his addiction. He'll create commotions to scare my grandma into giving him money. When the money well dried up he became a drug pusher.

All the years of addiction and starvation eventually led him to lose his wits. Until the baranggay was forced to bring him to the hospital, the special one in Mandaluyong.

That story isn't the whole of Raul's life. It doesn't even scratch the surface. But all his years his life turned for the worse. There will be times that he will sober up and be all nice and good, even becoming a tricycle driver so that he could at least provide for himself.

I grew up knowing the bad Raul. My parents always reminds me to be cautious of the guy, to avoid him every moment I can. Eventually I came to fear him. And as he lay there at this moment on his deathbed, it is my fears that has numbed my heart.

Everytime I will hear him shouting and screaming and demanding money from my grandma, or hear newa that he has been causing trouble somewhere in the baranggay or in another place, I always wish that he is dead. He is better off dead. Better for him, and especially better for us. Good riddance, I would always think. And now that he is near death's door, I still feel the same way.

I don't know if you have felt the way I am feeling now: wishing someone be dead and not feeling a bit of remorse or guit over it. But I do. Once there was a rumor that he died of drug overdose, I wasn't happy but I wasn't mourning either. I was a stone. I was blank. I was really hoping he was dead, but it was a false alarm.

I wish our story has a happy ending. I wish he has repented from his ways and lived a better life early on, got married and had kids. But no. He chose to live that way. In the end it will be him that will decide his fate. We can't force a way of life on him. I still think he is better off dead and be over with all the hardships he's going through (or made himself to go through), and stop the headache and fear that he inflicted us all these years.