A wall I made for him before he wakes up on the 12th. From me, from his family, from the people who have loved him longer than I have.
Aurel —
I made you something. It's 1:14am on the 11th and you are asleep on FaceTime in the corner of my screen and I am writing this on the floor of my dorm room because I cannot sit at a desk right now for some reason. You know the one.
There is a coffee place in QC that we have, by my count, been to forty-one times in two and a half years. It is the one with the green awning and the cat that hates everyone except you. I want you to know that on the morning of November 14th, 2024, after the thing with your dad and the phone call, you told me, with your face in your hands at the small table by the window, that the only thing you wanted to be was a person who made things that other people could keep. I am keeping this. I am keeping all of it. The thing you said. The song we played in the car on the way to Tagaytay in February. The way you laugh, with your whole face, when you don't mean to.
You are twenty-one tomorrow. The wall is full of people who love you. I wanted to be first.
I love you, Aurel. Happy birthday. — M.
a folded note from each person who matters
okay i lied i wanted to say one more thing. you know how you always say "no but seriously listen" before you say the actual important thing? i started saying it too. last week in figure drawing i said it to nadine and she went "you are turning into your boyfriend" and i went, yeah, a little, and i was happy about it. happy birthday, aurel. i am yours. — M.
Bunso — Ma keeps a folder on the desktop called "Aurel kid art" and there are 412 things in it. I went home last weekend and she made me look at it with her. There is one from when you were six, of a man with very long arms and a hat, and you wrote on the back "para sa tatay". I forgot how much you loved him. I think you forgot too. I am proud of you for the man you are becoming. Twenty-one. You will always be the small one with the long-armed-man drawings to me. Happy birthday, kiddo. — Ate
AUREL!!!! 21!!!! my guy. my friend. the man who, in october of 2023, made me drive three hours to san pablo because you had decided, at 11pm on a tuesday, that you needed to see a specific lake. we did not even get out of the car when we got there. you just looked at it for like nine minutes and then said "okay we can go now". i am still thinking about it. happy birthday brother. the lake is, presumably, still there. we should go back. — Joaq
Anak — Maligayang kaarawan, ang bunso ko. Twenty-one years ago at exactly 3:47 in the morning you came into the world and you did not cry, you just looked around the room like you were checking who was there. The doctor said, "this one is going to be an observer." She was right. You have been watching the world carefully ever since. I worry about you in Manila. I worry about you eating, I worry about you sleeping, I worry about you walking home after the studio at night. Pia tells me to stop. Your girlfriend, Maris — she is a good one, anak. She told me on the phone last month that you have been eating. I believed her. Call me on Tuesday. I made the bibingka. I will bring it when I come on Saturday. I love you. — Ma.
Aur — three years of you on the other side of the room. First year you painted that piece for our crit (the one with the figures and the chairs, you know the one) and slept on the studio floor for two nights with a hoodie over your head and woke up at 5am to keep going. I was twenty feet away pretending to be asleep and watching you work. I have, since then, never been more glad to be assigned a roommate. You are the best painter in our year and you are the best person I know in Manila and the lease is up in May but I would re-sign for a fourth year tomorrow. Twenty-one, bro. Happy birthday. — Mat
Aurel. On February 19th, 2025 at the studio you sat next to me on the floor while I was crying because of the thing with my mom and you did not say anything for, I think, almost an hour. You just sat there next to me and let me cry. At some point you went and got us both coffee from the machine and you came back and you sat back down and you still didn't say anything. That was the kindest thing anyone has done for me in art school and possibly anywhere. I am writing this from Singapore at my new job and I am okay because of, in part, the hour you sat on the floor with me. Happy birthday, friend. I love you a great deal. — Tala
AUREL!!!! rico from cebu. your kindergarten best friend. the one with the slingshot. your mom found me on facebook through my mom and asked me to write something for your 21st and i was like, of course, are you serious, of course. i still have the picture of us from your seventh birthday — you, me, the cat, the cake that your mom dropped on the floor and then we ate anyway. i bet you forgot. i did not. happy birthday, AUR. cebu misses you. i miss you. come home in december. — RICO
Aurel — Your first-year drawing professor here, writing from the studio at the request of your girlfriend, who is, I gather, organizing something very thoughtful for the 12th. I have, in twenty-one years of teaching, had perhaps a dozen students whose work made me sit down. You were one of them. The piece you turned in for the final crit of your first semester — the one with the chairs and the figures — is still on my desk at home. I look at it most weeks. I would like, when you are ready, for you to know that the gallery in Cubao has, since last spring, been asking me whom they should be watching. I have given them your name. I think you should call them in the autumn. Many happy returns. Keep working. — A. Reyes
“no but seriously listen”
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