A WALK TO REMEMBER

by Arielle Claudith S. Lunn

My name is Chloe, 24 years old. When I was young, I used to wake up and get out of bed after day dreaming for about an hour. I would only come down when my Mom calls me or if there is really a good motivation to get my head off my pillows.

One summer when I was 13 years old, I got out of bed at four in the morning. I took a quick bath and got dressed. I carried a big mattress, bag full of clothes, another with a plate, a spoon and a fork and one glass and another bag for personal items, to a tricycle waiting outside the house. I had some help of course, the mattress wasn’t light. By 4:30 AM, I was driven to the seminary.
I am a girl, not a boy who was enrolled there and was moving in. No, I was just one of the many excited campers. We had this event that required early set ups and wake up calls, late night outs, meeting new friends and learning new things in a span of three days and two nights in one place. It was my first time there and I was to sleep in a huge room that accomodates more or less 50 Seminarians. The school was huge and I loved the feeling that I got to see it empty of students at 5 AM. I mean, it was like me being a Seminarian myself who just woke up really early. That was fun but the camp was barely beginning.

I met one hundred and thirty-two (132) new friends. Boys, girls and gays! We had speakers that were all priests. Our late nights were all spent in prayers and friendly bonding.

Here’s the truth, I met one hundred and thirty-one people and this one particular guy. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world. He was smart, great at math and top of his class. He could dance; I mean he learned to dance before he could walk. He was kind, thoughtful, cute, caring, hard working and humble. He was such a perfect guy…something his school greatly contributed to since enrolling there. Here were the glitches, he was five years older than me and he was aspiring for priesthood. I met him the first night when I discovered that Seminarians were also attending.

It was great on my part when we spent almost three hours in the morning of the second day just talking. He was a gentleman and one of those who listened and cared too much. I talked about my life since I was six and that was a long story. We were talking about ourselves and getting to know each other. I never knew I could be opened with someone I just met, but I did, and enjoyed talking to someone older than me. I only noticed we were walking with more people when someone tapped me on the shoulder and say hi! That walk to the beach just flew by.
From that camp, he was one of the great memories. I kept reminiscing on after everything was over.

We keep in touched after the camp broke and meet here and there. I went to the early mass twice a day just to see him.

I remember there was this other girl, who was only a year younger than him. She was pretty, smart and spoke her mind. I was also smart, can speak my mind but I was younger. I got jealous when they spent time together on the third day. I was completely ignored as if we never met. I didn’t appreciate her and barely liked her even until after the camp broke.
One time, when he was serving in the mass, I remembered that he was going to be a priest. Since both of us needed to focus on our studies, I considered his negative aspects and made them reasons for me not to like him.

Reason one; I learned he only understood some of the thing I said during that walk to the beach. He listened but he said later on that he didn’t understand a lot because I was talking in English so fast.

Reason two; I didn’t want anyone to be his girlfriend. Selfish but I considered it normal and so when he said, he treats every girl like a sister, I was fine.

Reason three, all the other simple things like not remembering my birthday. I just needed more reasons.
Oh well, I just laugh at those things now. He was one of my prized memories. During those events, I felt something I just decided to call love. Prized because it gave me the philosophy that just because you feel admiration and closeness towards a person, you can not immediately call it love.

A year after we met, I started to call him padz and pray for his holy perseverance.
He continued his studies and we lost contact for some time. We only met again at a mass three weeks ago. I took the liberty of introducing myself again and God was on my side when he kept a good memory of me in his head for him to remember me. I was overjoyed to catch up with him as an old friend.

I was 24 and engaged and he was 31, single and happy. In short, he is a priest./WVE