You held my hand. You introduced me to forty other children. Mostly craned their necks out of curiosity. Some smiled. Others snorted. Mostly didn't even gaze at us. You said my name. They repeated after you. And that started our relationship.

One day, you asked us to practice writing our names on a piece of paper. I filled my notebook with my first name. I glanced at a classmate's work next to me and I envied her. Why would her name be a paper-width long? And who on earth could have such a long name? I felt like crying because I totally envied her name. She wrote neatly, I thought. And then you came to me, pat my head and said it's okay. You took my work and after some time returned it to me. On my notebook is my full name neatly written on top of the page. I've never forgotten the day you let me discover that I own not just a single name; that I too, like my seatmate, have a full name: first, middle and last.

You were talking to someone when I approached you. You smiled and you spoke my name. I asked you if I can be excused. I wanted to use the loo. And to my surprise, you introduced me to your friend and said: this boy has the best handwriting in my class. I beamed with gladness and I showed my toothless grin. I didn't even know that my handwriting was good. Year afterwards, in a conversation with a classmate, I learned that you spoke of all of us, your wards, with fondness as having 'the best handwriting', the 'most disciplined', the 'best leader', etc. The truth is: I believed you -- that my handwriting is good, that I am special, that I can achieve something because you believed in me.

You said you think I can act and you included me in a cast of a moro-moro play -- as a Christian soldier. I, again, beamed with pride and I proudly told my playmates about it. They promised to watch and they did. We practiced for a month long and you made sure we didn't forget our lines and we didn't miss our blockings (at a much later age, I realized that a blocking is a director's instructions on where an actor should go at a certain cue). At the show proper, although I had a hard time pulling the sword from its sheath so instead I just raised my hand, I thought we all did well.

One day you just looked at me blankly when a classmate came to you crying because I hit him. I was very afraid then and I prayed hard that you will not tell my parents about it because I'm sure my father will be very mad and I will get a beating. You made me apologize in front of forty other children and you made me promise never to do it again. And then, as a punishment, you let me clean the whole room alone. The boy whom I hit that day, collared me on my way home but I didn't fight back. I went home with a bruise on my cheek but I told my mother a can hit me while playing tumbang preso. Of course she knew I were in a fight but all she lovingly said was: Whatever your reason is, never, ever be in a fistfight. I learned that day that bad deeds don't go unpunished and that anger will get me nowhere.

We were together for what, six years? I didn't even ask how many kids you have nor where your house was.

Now, so many years later, I found things about you. That you had four kids, one of them the same age as I. That you were a wife of a jeepney driver. That, throughout your career, you had a total of four thousand children under your wing. That out of those four thousand, one of them became a priest, mostly became fathers and mothers, some became OFWs, others migrated elsewhere and never returned to our town.

You taught me so many things; from you, I even learned how to cook rice -- how to wash them, how many times to wash them, when to lower the flame.

When my family transferred town, I never got the chance to see you again. Too bad, I didn't even get a chance to thank you personally. But I know that you're seeing me now and you know that I am very grateful for what you did and what you said to me and what you taught me.

But it sure is uncool that I can't take you to your last trip. You're in my prayers tonight and tomorrow night and the many nights after that.

You see, my teacher lies in a coffin tonight, thus I'm sad.