Closing walls and ticking clocks
Gonna come back and take you home
-Coldplay

me: they've been in town for three weeks and we never knew about it?? HOW COULD WE NOT KNOW ABOUT IT??

the jalandonis are here. and they were heading back to the states the next day.

mom took me to the despedida. we got there, greeted everyone, then helped ourselves to the buffet. i sat with maddie while eating, talking about school and stuff...

me: so what have you been up to?
maddie: oh... you know... eating... shopping... movies... sleeping... basically nothing!

we went into the room with tj and turned on the tv. we settled on watching pool. or at least... what we though was pool. after some time, lola dora, my lolo's siter, entered in her wheelchair. tito max was with her and he carried her onto the bed. then he left, and we continued watching. after more time had passed, he came back in, this time with tita nadine and another guy who was apparently a priest. the priest was about to leave, and he wanted to bless lola dora before taking off. so he did. and we stood around her. she had her eyes closed as he mumbled words. then at some point she opened them... and they roamed around a bit... as if searching... before finally resting on me at the foot of the bed. i returned her gaze and smiled. she did too. the priest left. i finished a few more rounds of pool, then followed suit.