Labis na nagdadalamhati si Frankie Pangilinan dahil sa pagpanaw ng kanyang asong si Bea, na inalagaan niya sa loob ng labing-anim na taon.
Bata pa lang si Frankie ay nasa kanya na si Bea.
Si Frankie ay panganay na anak nina Sharon Cuneta at former Senator Kiko Pangilinan.
Sa Instagram kahapon, November 13, 2023, nagbalik-tanaw si Frankie sa mga unang araw nilang pagsasama ng alaga.
Pagbabahagi niya (published as is), “i’ve packed a bag and stolen you from the garden because i am sick and angry and small and i think i will run away.
“there are snakes in this patch of province, but you will protect me, i think, not because you’ve done it before, but because you are fast and strong and i know you love me.
“we’ve made it many streets away by the time we reach the thicket of mango trees and you look at me with sad eyes and tilted head. you’re thirsty.
“i neglected to pack you food or water. you walk me home.”
Nagpasalamat si Framkie sa alagang itinuturing niyang kaibigan sa masayang alaalang kanilang pinagsamahan.
Ang 16 years daw ay maaring matagal na panahong pamumuhay ng isang aso, pero para sa tao, napakaiksi lamang na panahon ito para sa kanilang pinagsamahan.
Hindi rin daw niya mapapatawad ang sarili dahil hindi siya personal na nakapagpaalam kay Bea.
Aniya, “thank you for being my best friend, even and especially on the days i had none.
“sixteen years is too long for someone like you and too short for someone like me but in that time you taught me a love so unconditional i have spent the last six hours wailing atop a crumpled heap of fresh laundry in a cold city tens of thousands of arm-stretches away and i will never forgive myself for not being home to say goodbye.
“did you hear me on the phone? here is what i said, between the premature grief, the sniffling: 'i love you, bea. i love you. i love you. i love you. i love you.'”
Dagdag pa ni Frankie, “i don’t know for sure when you started forgetting. i don’t know how much of it was painful.
“i don’t know if you really did remember me whenever i’d call your name in the old way and you’d move slow and sink your chin against my hand and we’d sit there on the floor like we were once more one and seven, like i was playing piano for you and singing mangled little song fragments that didn’t yet exist.
"you’d sing along sometimes.
“i don’t know if you dreamt of better gardens, or of me. i don’t know if i will hear your little ghost or come home to an emptiness even worse than this.”
Hindi na raw alam ni Frankie kung anong buhay pa ang naghihintay sa kanya balang araw at ikinatatakot niya itong malaman.
Umaasa naman siyang muli silang magkasama ng alaga kahit sa afterlife.
Sabi niya, “i don’t know what this life is without you and i am so scared now at the prospect of finding out.
"but i hope in the next, our expired atoms can rearrange and perhaps even merge to make themselves ivory for piano keys or rubber for the bounciest of chew toys or best friends, again, in some new shape.
"maybe somebody like me will play us for somebody like you. maybe our red bouncy ball will fly. maybe i will see you soon.”
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