The air was crisp and soft, the sky pale and gentle as the morning sun filtered through the trees. Rainan found himself in the middle of a quiet park—serene, almost unreal in its stillness. The benches were empty, the grass dew-kissed, and the world felt like it was holding its breath.
He glanced around, brows furrowed in mild confusion. Why am I here?
A faint laugh pulled his gaze toward the playground. A child, was sliding down a bright red slide, his small frame bursting with energy. Rainan watched, curious. The boy’s laugh echoed—a sound so familiar and pure, it tugged something deep inside him.
Curious, Rainan made his way toward him. “Hey there,” he said with a smile, “you're up early. What are you doing out here all alone?”
The boy didn’t seem startled. He just looked up with a grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “I’m waiting for my grandma,” he said simply.
Rainan’s brows furrowed a bit. “This early?”
The boy just shrugged and ran toward the swing. “Can you push me?”
Without hesitation, Rainan stepped behind him and gave a light push. The swing creaked slightly as it moved. The boy laughed again, kicking his legs in the air.
“What’s your name?” Rainan asked.
“Rainan.”
He froze. “Rainan?”
“Yup,” the boy replied, still swinging.
Rainan blinked, amused and oddly unsettled. “How old are you, Rainan?”
“Eight.”
“And where do you live?”
The boy tilted his head and gave a vague answer. “Somewhere not too far… but not too close either.”
Rainan chuckled at the cryptic response. “Okay then, mysterious.”
The boy stopped swinging and turned to him, sitting still now. “What about you? What’s your name?”
“Rainan,” he answered, smiling.
The boy beamed. “Really? We have the same name!”
“Looks like it.”
The swing slowed.
The boy turned around to face him. “What about you? Where do you live?”
“Somewhere not too far… but not too close either.”, he also answered.
They stayed quite for a moment until the little kid spoke again.
“What do you do, big Rainan?”
“I’m an architect.”
“Is that your dream job?”
Rainan paused for a moment. “Yeah… yeah, I think it was.”
“You think?”
He scratched his head, suddenly unsure. “I mean, I always wanted to design things. Make places better. Safer. Beautiful.”
The boy nodded, then looked down at his feet. “I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.”
“That’s okay,” Rainan said, crouching beside him. “You don’t have to figure it out right away. You’ll try things, make mistakes, get back up. What matters is that you try—and that you stay kind.”
The boy seemed to consider that for a while, then looked at him again. “After you got your dream job… were you happy?”
Rainan’s smile faded just a little. He stared at the ground. The birds chirped in the distance, and the wind gently rustled the leaves.
“I… don’t know,” Rainan answered honestly. “There were good moments. But I also lost things. People. Time. I worked so hard, I forgot to slow down sometimes.”
The boy looked up at him with big eyes. “Was it worth it?”
Rainan didn’t answer right away. He felt the weight of the question settle in his chest.
“Did you live your whole life happy?” the boy asked, even softer now.
The words stung—not because they were cruel, but because they were true. Rainan closed his eyes, heart aching.
A voice called out then, light and warm. “Rainan!”
They both turned.
An elderly woman emerged from the morning mist, walking with grace and purpose. Her hair was silver, her smile soft like the sunrise.
Rainan stood as she approached.
“Who are you?” he asked.
The woman reached out and took his hand. Her touch was warm, familiar.
“You’ve done well,” she said softly. “You’re doing better than you think.”
Rainan felt something stir in his chest, something he couldn’t name.
She turned to the boy. “Come now, it’s time.”
The boy hopped off the swing and walked over, but not before giving Rainan one last smile.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For reminding me what dreams are for.”
Rainan watched as the boy took the woman’s hand. As they walked away, the sunlight seemed to wrap around them, until they faded into light.
And then Rainan woke up—his pillow damp with tears, his heart still tethered to the dream, as if it had been more than just a dream.
As if a part of himself… had just said goodbye.
---------------------
The morning air was heavy with memory. Rainan sat at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee growing cold in his hands, his thoughts still lost in the strange, lingering warmth of the dream. It felt too real—too intimate—to simply shake off. The little boy, the gentle voice that called out to him, and that smile… that smile of the old woman who walked away hand in hand with the child—it all kept playing in his mind.
That smile.
It belonged to no stranger.
It took only moments after he woke up to realize why it felt so familiar. It was her—his grandmother - Lola Brenda. His father’s mother. The same woman who used to braid his hair when he was still a child, who baked sweet coconut bread for merienda, and who told him stories about fireflies being stars who came down to visit.
She had passed away when Rainan was just eight years old.
And now, decades later, she appeared to him in a dream.
Without overthinking it, Rainan looked at his mother who had just finished folding the laundry. “Ma,” he said, quietly. “Would it be okay if I visited Lola Brenda today?”
His mother looked up, slightly surprised, then smiled gently. “Of course, anak. Would you like me to come with you?”
He shook his head. “No… I think I need to go alone.”
She gave a small nod, sensing something deeper in his request. “I’ll prepare the flowers she liked. The yellow sampaguitas. And maybe some espasol.”
A couple of hours later, Rainan stood at the quiet cemetery where time seemed to move differently. The path was cracked but familiar, shaded by a mango tree heavy with fruit. He found her resting place without effort. The gravestone, though simple, still bore the engraving clearly: Brenda M. Alon – Beloved Mother, Grandmother, Friend.
Rainan knelt beside the grave. His movements were careful, almost reverent. He brushed away a few dried leaves before placing the small plate of espasol and the delicate chain of sampaguita on the stone.
“Hi, Lola,” he whispered.
His voice trembled a little. It had been years since he last visited. And yet it felt like yesterday when he sat on her lap, listening to her hum lullabies, her arms always warm, always safe.
“You remember these?” he said, gesturing to the espasol. “Ma said they’re still made the way you used to like them. I brought your flowers too… yellow, just like you loved.”
He exhaled slowly, fingers brushing the edge of the stone.
“I don’t know where to start,” he admitted softly. “I had a dream. I met a kid—eight years old, said his name was Rainan. Said he was waiting for his grandma.”
He smiled a little, voice quiet.
“I pushed him on the swing. He asked me about my job, if it was my dream job. If I was happy. And I didn’t know how to answer. I told him I was an architect. That I helped build things. That I chased everything I thought I was supposed to.”
He fell silent for a moment, eyes drifting across the quiet hill, where dragonflies darted in the sunlight.
“And then I realized… I don’t even know if I’m happy. I don’t know if I ever really was.”
Rainan leaned forward slightly, resting his arms on his knees.
“I wanted to tell you everything, Lola. All the things I never had the chance to say when you were alive. And I know this is strange, me talking like this. But I need to say it now. Before it’s too late.”
He swallowed the ache in his throat.
“I’m sick, Lola. I have cancer.” His voice cracked. “Pancreatic.”
The words felt heavier than ever before.
“I came back here because… I didn’t know where else to go. I came back because home was the only place I could breathe again. And maybe because some part of me hoped I could find myself again, before the end.”
His shoulders sagged under the weight of it.
“I’m scared. I know I’ve said that before, but I’m really scared.”
He looked down, tears brimming in his eyes.
“I’m scared of what’s going to happen to Ma and Dad when I’m gone. I’m scared that they’ll be alone. That I’ll leave them with pain they never deserved. They’ve already lost so much. I don’t want to be another goodbye.”
Rainan’s voice grew tighter, edged with grief.
“I regret so many things. I regret not coming back sooner. I regret not telling them I loved them enough. I regret the way I lived—always forward, always chasing. I was so focused on being someone they could be proud of, I forgot to let them know that they were enough. That this place… was enough.”
He wiped a tear from his cheek, his hand trembling.
“I don’t want to go, Lola. Not yet. There’s still so much I want to do. There’s someone I… someone I love. And it hurts knowing I won’t get to love him the way he deserves. We don’t even have forever. We barely even have time.”
The wind shifted slightly, leaves rustling above him. Rainan closed his eyes, breathed in slowly, and tried to calm the storm inside him.
“I don’t know if you’re listening. But if you are… please watch over them. Over Ma and Dad. Over Mikaela, and Angelo, and everyone here. Please stay with me a little longer, even just like this.”
He placed a hand over his heart, gently pressing down.
“Because right now, I feel like everything is slipping through my fingers.”
He bowed his head, shoulders shaking as the tears finally came—deep and unfiltered. He cried for the boy he used to be, for the man he became, for the time he lost, and for the time he never got to have.
And as the sun dipped behind the clouds, casting golden hues over the grave, Rainan sat quietly, tears drying slowly on his face.
The silence that followed didn’t feel empty.
It felt like presence.
Like love that hadn’t left.
Like the quiet, enduring kind that lived in the space between one goodbye and the next.