Sixth Grade Stories: Remembering Sab

Sab during Intrams season :-)

In the sixth grade, I was assigned to section 6-D.  I was shy - and very, very awkward. I was reconciling myself with the onset of puberty from the year before - too early, in my opinion. (Our helper singing Pagkat dalaga ka na to me every time my time of the month came didn’t help either. It was painful. Just painful.) I was coming to terms with my monstrous height and the fact that I would never, ever be as inconspicuous as I'd wanted. I was also smarting from the bipolar relationship I had had with my fifth grade barkada, where we’d be the best of friends one minute, then I’d be persona non grata the next. They were not assigned to 6-D, much to my relief - and my utter dismay. I had been left virtually barkada-less. My verdict to self: sixth grade was the grade that I was destined to be alone.

The ensuing events reversed that verdict slowly but surely – like when, during one art class, I was seated next to a girl named Lisette. We had an awesome discussion about whether or not Santa Claus existed, thus paving the way for more interesting conversations and debates. I formed a lunch group with two funny, hilarious girls named Myra and Cecilia, who shared the same last name and sunny disposition but were not related in any way. It was also the year where I met my first ever best friend, Annie (who will serve as the subject for another blog entry), and the year that I was assigned to sit at the second to the last row, right next to a girl named Sabrina Roxas.

I have to admit, I was a bit daunted. Sabrina Roxas was beautiful, popular, smart, and well-liked by everyone in class. She’d walk in and I’d see the boys sit up a little bit straighter and the girls greet her excitedly, then make a beeline towards her to gossip and chat. She was one of those golden girls of our youth – confident, graceful, sought after, and very much admired. I was an awkward adolescent who wanted to just slouch in my seat and disappear. We would never get along, I told myself.

But we did. We did more than get along, we hit it off. We told stories, compared notes and handwriting, exchanged letters on Tickles stationary, and laughed over the silliest things. We claimed our area and wreaked our own brand of havoc – giggling at teachers, playing pranks on our seatmates, and greeting transferees to our area with a smug and conspiratorial “Welcome to our territory.”

Sab also brought me into her after school library study group. I was reading quietly in the fiction section, as I did every afternoon, when I felt a butterfly touch on my shoulder. I looked up and she was there. She pulled me up, linked arms with me, and brought me over to where she and the other talented, smart, golden girls were studying. And I became part of their study group for the rest of the year.

A moment that stands out in my mind was after a physical education (PE) class. We were hanging out and I was comparing myself to someone else, pointing out how similar I and this other person were.  She looked at me and sniffed in disdain, “Hindi kaya. Ikaw, ang ganda-ganda mo kaya. Siya hindi.” (No way. You’re beautiful. She isn’t) I looked at her and laughed in disbelief.  She raised her eyebrows saucily and retorted, “Ano ko ba? Ang ganda mo kaya.” (What’s wrong with you? You are beautiful.)

Deep inside I couldn’t believe it. Sab Roxas, one of the prettiest girls in class, had called me beautiful. Sure, this was something I had heard from my family and relatives, but figured that they were just biased. I had never been called that by someone else in school. And for a girl who had mostly been known in school circles as a bookworm with four eyes, I took her compliment and I treasured it.

We were classmates again the year after. But alas, a summer can do many things. And so can adolescence. We faced each other in the June of the new school year and suddenly had nothing to say to each other. The easy candor had disappeared and was replaced by an awkward silence. Such is life.

We lost touch in high school. In college, I met people who knew her and was classmates with boys who had had crushes on her. Hearing their stories about her made me smile. She was still the amazing girl that I had known and loved.

Later on in college, I received news of her passing. I heard it and grieved. I felt as if a bright light had been put out. The world without Sab Roxas felt lonelier, colder, and bereft of a beauty that had been there when she lived in it.

And so I pay tribute to her today. We may not have been in touch for the latter part of her life, but she mattered to me all the same. When I look back on my life so far, she is still a significant figure, her face a bright, shining star in the blur of childhood experiences and memories.

Oftentimes when I am alone, I feel her presence and I remember her.  Just as she gently sided up to me that afternoon in the library many, many years ago, I feel her approach, gently reminding me to think of her and say a prayer for her. I wouldn’t have it any other way. And in my mind, I pull her towards me, link arms with her, and walk through all those sweet, sweet memories of girlhood. And I, with all of my heart, remember her.

Rest in peace, Sab. You are greatly loved and deeply, deeply missed.