Where Have All the Sea Turtles Gone?

Posted on my Friendster Blog - February 2, 2008.

Also posted on my friend, Jayson's blog site with consent : ).

Earlier at work my boss (and a friend), Jayson just out of no where asked me – “Where are the stuff you brought for us from Palawan?”. Kind of funny but the trip he was referring to was over a year ago and that I was not able to return to work for a long time after my vacation leave. He told me, that maybe it is now high time I gave them away. Preceding the trip was the dreadful day of the accident that changed my life forever. It was not after five long months that I was able to report back to work. After he popped the question, I had a quick flash back of the not so distant past. I bought miniature sea turtles from our final stop on our five-day getaway to Palawan last year. As I had my encounter with the red dump truck after the day we came back to Manila, I ended up being confined in room 618 of the World Citi Hospital. The small sea turtles? They ended up all crammed up in a shoe box under my bed. After two months, I was discharged from the hospital. They remained under my bed. After three months I was welcomed back to the office and I started to slowly get back to my office routines. My turtles are still under my bed. I am somehow a lot better now. My life is now back to normal by some means. My turtles? To this day, they are still under my bed, heaving up inside a box – all twenty-something of them.
“I don’t know.” I told Jayson rather jokingly but half-meant. “I might break down if I opened the box and see the small sea turtles.”
He said, “Tell yourself that you came to live this day to be able to give them to those whom they are supposed to go to.”
I am still struggling inside, resentful of my tragedy. I have not reached the point where I am able to embrace and accept my misfortune and the changes it has brought me. I am not yet there. Or will I ever be there?
For whatever it's worth, I reckon it made a lot of sense to me - I came to live this day to give my little Palawan turtles to whom they are supposed to go. I like this bit – I came to live this day.
So tonight, I will pull out the box under my bed and bravely open it. Well, I have not liberated myself from the aftereffects of the accident as of yet. But maybe I can start from setting the sea turtles free.