My brother Ellis

To my family, I am Nunoy. (That's a Kinaray-a, Ilonggo, term of endearment for the second son of the family.) To my friends, I am Elis (single L).

Ellis (with a double LL) on the other hand is the name of my youngest brother. He was three years younger than me. He only lived to be 26. Dengue took him away from us more than six years ago.

When he was 14 years old, entering his senior year at Manila Science High School, he was diagnosed to have brain tumor, hydrocephalus. They had to open his head and take out the tumor. Thank God it was benign. He was out of school for one year. The Manila Science High School Administration, after surviving the brain tumor, initially did not want to admit him back. But better thinking prevailed and Ellis got his High School Diploma at Manila Science.

He wanted to be a doctor. He took up BS Microbiology at UST but things did not go according to plan. He ended up finishing BS Computer Science instead = )

In our family, Ellis is truly the gifted one, artistically. He can draw. He can sing. He can dance. (Among the three of us, only he was able to pass the Manila Science standard. I guess he is also the smartest among the three of us, too.)

He is really a beautiful boy.

But life had to happen and he had to become far more beautiful inside.

To start, he was really a charmer to begin with. He makes friends easily and when the brain tumor came and he survived - this side of him went to over drive. His personality now is even more attractive than his looks were. He even joked, that he started the trend of being semi-kalbo = ). You see, because of the radiation therapy, the hair never grew back.

I miss him.

But I know that he is in a much better place now. There, he is complete. There, he is perfect again. Cancer can not touch him there. The ravages of dengue is nowhere in sight.

He is beautiful again. Smiling. Laughing. Pain-free.

Thank you Lord for the pain and loss that I felt. For because of it I learned that my life is finite. Thank you Lord that I number my days. Thank you for the pain of death that I appreciate the gift of life.

"... why think like mere men?"