This is the last photo of all of us together taken in 2020. Minus daddy, of course, whom we had just laid to rest four days before. Me, my sisters, my mom. They were sending Raven and me off at the airport. On bloody New Year’s Day, of all days, because that was the cheapest flight my brother-in-law could get us. Any later than that was highway robbery.

And so while the rest of Cebu winded down the festivities of New Year’s Eve with a quiet lunch with their families, mine was saying our goodbyes and see-you-soon’s, even though none of us really knew when that would be. Silently hoping by then, the ‘why’ would be a happy one.

From the glass windows near the boarding gate, the fluffiest white clouds strolled leisurely across the brilliant blue sky. Mocking me. Begging me to stay. Making me want to reconsider my long-term plans.

If I stay for good… and then what?

As the plane took off Mactan’s runway, I swapped places with a fisherman below whose tiny boat was out at sea, watching my plane above grow smaller and smaller until it disappeared entirely from view.

A part of me is still in that boat, riding out the ebb and flow of missing home.

*Raven at 3years old