HAPPY BIRTHDAY PURPLE CAT

Purple Cat's birthday is on April 25. But I am posting this already as she may be gone to Baguio by then...

I was lining up outside our department Dean's Office for my enrollment. Cathyne, a transferee from St Louis University, approached me like a cat asking for some milk. "Anne, can you help me get into the school organ?" I was then the editor of our college magazine. I didn't know she knew I was the editor. Back in college, I made myself as invisible as I could get. I just simply hated to be seen or be acknowledged. It was quite a surprise on my part that a fair, tall, beautiful and smart chinita from the famous Baguio would know of my existence! She was way too interesting and everybody wanted to be her friend. I was a quiet, shy, anti-social student who would never strike a conversation nor look anybody in the eye.

She got into our school paper in no time. By the time she became the sports editor, we were inseparable. Up to this day, it is a wonder to me how we got to be friends. As far as I could remember, the main reason why I wanted to stick with her was because she was always ready to lend me P50 pesos whenever I ran out of pamasahe. Eventually I just found myself wanting more and more to hang out with her simply because we listened to the same radio station, memorizing almost every WRock song. Most weekends, I stayed in their house, we would stay up till the wee hours talking, watching TV, playing with her radio transciever or popularly know that time as walkie-talkie. And on schooldays, everynight, we burnt telephone lines talking nonstop about our favorite tv programs, movies, and sometimes slandering about classmates and schoolmates that we hated. We were so enseparable that we were suspected to be lesbians. *gosh*

We especially bonded through the trips we made together. She went to visit my family in Iloilo and stayed there for a few days. It was for the most part special because she was able to meet my family and see the place I spent some part of my childhood. Cathyne is a sucker for anything sentimental, particularly places of childhood. She shared with me hartwarming memories of her flores de mayo, how she, like any other kid, would steal flowers from neighbors's gardens.
Every once in a while she would fall into depression, lock herself in her room for days and would not talk to anybody. I, as a privileged friend, would go to her house and knock in her room. She would show me the things she threw on the wall, books and magazines torn apart, the evidences of her unspoken angst and pains. She had plenty of those, and so did I. Looking back now, I guess that's where we met, in the secret spaces inside us somewhere, where we felt alone and misunderstood. My sister and I were living on our own, our parents in Iloilo. Periodically I would leave school for a few days and go see my parents. Each time I had to go, Cathyne would have a hard time seeing me off. We would just sit around and not talk much. I knew so much about her silence, and she knew mine.

Ten years after college, we are now both married, she with a beautiful daughter and me, with an equally cute son! She has put on some ample amount of weight (friends ta cat no?ti medyo kind gid ko sa akon words.nyehehehe) and is constantly trying to stick on her diet, and well, yes, constantly failing. I remember her dieting no-end just to make her painfully thin crush notice her, to no avail. She almost considered her weight back then a curse. (ok, im exaggerating)
What I appreciate most about Cat is that she gives me freedom to be myself. I can be as careless with my words as I could get, she would take no offense. I could never recall a time when she got mad at me. I got mad at her once, the only time up till now, when she made me weight for 45 minutes at an agreed rendezvous. I didn't talk to her for days. Of course she was ecstatic when I finally smiled at her. Our friendship is built on mutual trust and respect. I guess that's one of the secrets to a lasting friendship.

I wanted a friend who is happy for the things I achieve in life, someone who is there to cheer me on and be proud of me. I wanted a friend who never asks questions but who never minds answering mine. I wanted a friend who knows the whys and the hows of my life, without me having to explain. I wanted a friend who understands life too well to allow me to live my own.
Cathyne is that kind of friend and I will forever cherish and appreciate her for the 'purple cat' that she is.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KURING! Praying for your happiness, your dreams, the desires of your heart that not everybody knows and really understands. Like a cat you defy death, manytimes, that come in different faces. Discouragement, threat, failure, fear, loss, a lot more. Look at you, standing proud and tall, claws ready for a brawl, yet never losing grace and elegance. Purr on!!

Love,
Anne