With love and gratitude

Purga, thanks for everything. I’m sorry it took me two years to say these words. But I will make it up to you, and tell you what’s going on here after they took you away two years ago.

Some things are still the same, but a lot have changed for the better. You’d notice that many people we used to work with are no longer here. And I think their absence is for the better. Out with the old and rotten and in with the good and new, right? Before, we worried together when some of the guys decided to leave, but now I’m seeing it in a new light. It’s not so much that we’re doing something wrong as that our work itself sieves out the weaker ones, those who are incapable of stretching for sacrifice and of seeing themselves in the long haul. We have things to work on to improve our styles and methods, but the reality of some people leaving in the process is not something we should pain ourselves with for always.

Many things happened after we lost you. Clinton got transferred and is doing quite well. Tonie had the struggle of his life but fortunately, we won him over and he’s trying to come to terms with his limitations and misdeeds. We have a newbie, Makoy, and he’s like you and Clinton and Tonie put together. I don’t know if that’s a good thing but I’m hopeful he’s going to shine and carve his own niche here. Bella has jumped the fence, and I keep remembering why we tried to stick with him for so long or why we even bothered to begin with. At the back of our minds, didn’t we know that he was beyond repair? But I guess we always see the potential good in everyone.

My partner and I tied the knot finally! And it was not I who proposed, ha-ha! We had a simple garden ceremony, with few of the guys in attendance. The family tried to make it at least half-decent, but what can you expect with just five hours of preparation and a pending 15-kilometer walk back after the ceremony? We hit the year-mark last month, too. We’ve been together for three years now.

He’s wonderful. I can’t ask for anyone better. He’s getting really good at his job, and his nightmares about you and what happened no longer keep him up nights.

I have forgiven myself for what happened in those two fateful August days. And I think the family has forgiven me, too. I feel like I must also ask for your forgiveness for what happened to you. Maybe if my partner had more experience than he had at that time, he would have been able to provide you with the proper medical care other than just taking you out of the front lines. Maybe if I were not as disheartened as I was when I saw you at that time, I would have been able to think of better ways of saving you (though I can’t think of anything else now that would have made a difference).

Things are clearer now, and the questions I was too arrogant to ask for fear of being ridiculed have come to the fore. I used to think we were unstoppable, and while some of us had some thoughts, we didn’t take the difficult road and risk the hot seat because we, too, were pretty much enjoying the successes we had been reaping. My head, particularly, had been in the clouds for far too long and, like Adele said, I was “born and raised in a summer haze/bound by the surprise of our glory days.” (Ah, of course, the name Adele and her song may not immediately ring a bell. You remember that song from a little known contralto I had you listen to in March 2011? Like I astutely predicted, she hit it big.)

The great Chinese teacher once said that arrogance springs from a tendency to be subjective and see only one side of the coin. We saw only our successes and chose not to be bothered by the seemingly insignificant but ugly undercurrents between our hovering feet and the ground. But now we are even more determined to strive toward stalemate in the proverbial chess match we are in.

What will really spell the difference is when we come to terms with our misgivings in a way that our work itself will reflect it. I think you’ll be proud to see us making amends in our comprehensive undertakings. We’re really starting to concretely establish the bricks and mortars of that alternate society that emboldened us to take up arms.

We got much flak for months after you died that morning of Aug. 11, 2011, and for what ensued in the early hours the next day. The bullet that fatally pierced your heart during the first volley of gunfire did take you physically away from me, our family and the communities that love you, but that’s mere geography. No death, no campaign of suppression and annihilation, not even superstorms like “Pablo,” can take away the soldier and cadre Alvin Rey Santiago—Purga to us—from the hearts of every red soldier and masa.

Meanwhile (cocking my virtual pistol and aiming it at the sky), here’s to you and to me as I exorcise the demons that will no longer haunt me. Fire.

“Delilah Mirabal” is 29.