A Prelude to 'Dead Stars'

      Hey guys!  What's up?

Neriz Gabelo says: 'We all have that dead star.'

     I have another guest post coming up entitled 'Dead Stars' written by my good friend Neriz Cruz Gabelo.  I will not elaborate much on the content but it is about a love that never came to be.  As a background, here's Madam Neriz' edited e-mail telling me how she came up with the post.  Names and locations were intentionally erased to protect the identity of the personalities involved. 

     There’s a girl colleague who shared with me her love story about a guy who became her biggest love ever.  Theirs was not a defined relationship but in her heart of hearts, she knew that she secretly loved the guy.  They were in college when it happened and both went through the motion of undisclosed special liking for one another.  At any rate, neither took the courage to define what they had so they both went on with their lives.  Eventually, the guy left for the US and established his own career.  He got married there but sadly they divorced after some years.  My girl colleague didn’t marry or had any other serious relations after.  She didn’t attribute it to the guy though.
    
     Then came Facebook, and they found each other again.  They barely communicated in cyber.  After some years, the guy went back to the Philippines for a vacation which by the way happened just last week.  He decided to see my girl colleague.  They met, like the good old days -- but some things seem to have changed.  That’s when my friend realized that the love was gone.  Was she sorry about it?  Not quite.  Inside the ladies’ room, she was relating that story to a few of us, her closest buddies when one colleague asked me: 'Neriz ikaw, do you have a dead star (lost love) in your life?'  I responded: 'Oo naman.  I guess we all have that dead star.  We all think of what life would have been had we made an extra effort to work something out and not just easily gave up.  Or what if I had lowered my pride a bit?  What if I had been given another chance to talk to him again?  Then I’m given that rare second chance to feel for myself if the love is still there.  Then I realize, it’s gone, like a dead star.'   They all simply nodded and agreed but with sadness in their eyes.  That’s when I said, Paz Marquez Benitez was a brilliant author because she captured the very universal regret of mankind and wrote about it during the post-war.

     Last night, I got a text message from that girl colleague, she said:  'Thanks for your words Neriz. I am facing things now as a big girl.'  That’s when I thought, I will make it my post in your blog. I wrote the post within an hour after staring at Slater of PBB and falling in love with his values and intellect.  The looks being the last.  Hope you and your readers like it.

     There you go.  I think that's a little too much for a teaser and I was quite surprised with this huge revelation that Madam Neriz has a huge crush on Slater!  Mmmm, haha!

     Here's another yet interesting trivia about my up and coming post.  As I was going through my pictures to look for something suitable for the article, I came up with nothing.  I then turned to another good friend Elvert de la Cruz Bañares and asked if I can borrow one from his thousands of available photos.  I might've mentioned Direk Elvert on my other blog when I joined him and Madam Neriz last month during the book launch of Ricky Lee's 'Si Amapola sa 65 na Kabanata.'  Direk Elvert (as I fondly call him) like Madam Neriz is also quite an achiever.  His talent comes in many forms.  What he does is mostly showbiz related -- and please support his up and coming coffee table book too.  It will be launched soon, I heard.  Hope I get invited to the launch -- *hinting here Direk! Haha!*  Anyway, I was surprised when he said he'll just do a photoshoot for my post and asked me to describe a little bit what it's about.  Now, that ought to make that post more interesting and I can't wait to publish it -- soon!

     To those who don't know it yet, Direk Elvert and Madam Neriz are both part time professors at Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM) and Direk Elvert recently produced a Christmas video which stars all the professors of the university with some of their brilliant students.  I'm sharing the video with you in light of the Christmas season.  Guys, watch it and share the joy!

     I also wanna say Hi and Merry Christmas to all the students of PLM and to their awesome Dean, Prof. Ludmila Labagnoy whom I had the pleasure of meeting one time over coffee.  The video looked fun, and more importantly, everyone in this inspiring music video looked like they truly had fun!

     Merry Christmas everybody!  Until my next post. ☺

*Video courtesy of Direk Elvert de la Cruz Bañares 
*Photo taken at San Benon Hot Spring, Irosin Sorsogon

tags: related story about Dead Stars