Today’s Juelly’s burial and my daughter feels sad she couldn’t be there to pay her last respects.
I bought a sympathy card this afternoon from Walgreens. I am going to mail it tomorrow to Juelly’s family in New Jersey.
Oyen is heartbroken.
I had the pleasure of working for you from January of 2006 to July of 2007. A mere calendar year in time but it laid the foundation for who I am today, for who I will become. In my year as your assistant, I learned to type, file, organize, shred and encode. More than that, I learned attention to detail, how to forge relationships with people, humility and the value of hard work. No one worked harder than you though. You were so dedicated to that little office and so sincere in your desire to help others. “Hayyy Buhay, Parang Life” is what you’d always say when we had particularly tiring days. There were a lot of those days, but it didn’t matter, in a show of incredible strength, you dug deep and persevered through it all. It was your family who kept you going. John, Thomas and Jeffrey were your everything. I can still see the way your face beams with pride and love as you spoke of them and their accomplishments.
You were a mom to everyone, including me. I couldn’t take a sick leave without you calling to remind me to take medicine. You were so involved and updated in my life, my school work and my love life. My favorite memories of working with you were the light days when we could chismis and laugh over a coffee or Wendy’s Frosty. We had the same corny sense of humor and the simplest of things could make us laugh. One of our running jokes was your ridiculously cluttered desk. Your desk is like a time capsule, I swear there’s stuff there from 1988. One fateful day, I couldn’t take it anymore so after you left, I organized your desk and cleaned it. You were so surprised the next day and I’ll never forget how thrilled you were. It always made me happy to see you happy.
Very touching.