The Star We Didn’t Need to Name

Nanay,

Yesterday morning, I found myself crying the kind of tears that leave you quiet after.
Facebook memories kept bringing me back to Christmases when you were still here, when the season felt anchored simply because you were in it.

After you passed, no one in the family put up a Christmas tree anymore.
It wasn’t a decision we talked about. It just stopped.
As if we didn’t know how to make room for celebration without you standing at the center of it.

This year, Ate Madel put one up in her home.
Not our old tree. Not the one filled with the weight of memory.
A different one. New. Separate. Her own.

I don’t even live with her, but somehow it still reached me.

I think it’s because of Aime.
Because it’s her first Christmas.
Because firsts have a way of opening doors we thought we had closed.

You were always the one looking forward to putting up the tree.
We never realized that all those years, we didn’t need a star on top of it, because you were the star, holding everything together for everyone.

How I wish you could meet her.
How I wish you could see her - this small life already carrying meaning she doesn’t yet know how to name.

She’s named after you, Nanay.
Your nickname, Emia, gently reversed to become Aime.
Your name, turned just enough to keep moving forward.

And now, you continue to be our star.
From afar, the kind you can’t measure.
From a place or dimension I don’t even know if it truly exists.

Still, I feel you.
In the way light shows up differently now.
In a tree that isn’t ours, in a house that isn’t mine, in a family learning slowly how to hold joy again. 

And maybe that’s enough.

If there is a place where you can see us, I hope you know this:
you are still the light we gather around.

Always.