DEAR ATE CHARO,

THIS IS HER STORY.

She's nobody compared to others!!

She's just an ordinary girl from a small town whose only dream was to become rich and to have a lot of toys.  She never had a doll - would you believe?  But if paperdoll would be considered as one..then that was all she got.

When she reached five, her mom enrolled her in a Day Care Center.  She was ecstatic, for the first time, she was able to hold her own pencil and scribble it on her pad of paper. But she didn't have crayons though!  When her teacher asked them to draw their fave fruit, she drew a mango.  Her teacher asked her, "Is that a ripe mango?". She answered with much pride, "Yes, teacher!"  She wanted to color it yellow but she ain't got any crayons, so when she came home after school, she immediately asked her mom to buy her a box of crayons and her mom did but that was after she flooded the house with tears.

During her primary years in school, she never wanted her classmates to go in their place cuz she didn't want to be asked where her parents were. (Damn..they're out gambling!!)  She was very active in school then.  She was fond of joining different contests. And the more she discovered her talents the more she hated her parents.  They were not there when she first delivered her oratorical speech on stage.  Nobody took a picture..nobody looked at her with much pride except her trainer.  She attended her first Holy Communion alone.  She walked down the aisle and received the HOST with a church goer whom she didn't know.  And  those are the  nightmares that haunt and kill  her every night.

Her parents never attended a PTA meeting...never got her report card..never asked  how she was in school. Graduation day came, her parents fought whether who would accompany her on stage cuz neither of them wanted to.

She's a battered child. And the scars of every whip she got are still there..still bleeding in her heart.

Until the time came that she made up her mind...she made a decision that really changed her life.  She entered a convent  to study.

She wanted to escape..from chaos..from sadness..from scarcity of love..affection and attention.

BEHIND  HER GLOWING EYES .....IS EMPTINESS!

BEHIND HER CHUCKLES ..IS  BITTERNESS!

BEHIND HER FUNNY JOKES ..IS  LONELINESS!

BEHIND HER SOFT TOUCH ...IS  LONGINGNESS!

and...

....those emptiness, bitterness, loneliness and longingness make her tough, independent...

... make her learn to love..

... make her grateful for everything that she has now..

... make her forget and somehow forgive..

.. make her stay believing that someday..SHE'll SOAR!