I literally let out a shriek last Friday when, walking with SJSA's Ms. Nette to Barangka, I took the route from Gonzaga leading to SEC and saw that the Calachuchi tree which had always stood smack in the middle of the path was missing. Somebody had uprooted it and all that's left were newly installed slabs of stone, an evidence of the meticulous and totally planned manner of murder. Not that they really killed the tree. I'm sure they replanted it somewhere... I hope, I hope. But I guess whoever did this killed a lot of things. They killed all the Calachuchi's potential of ever giving joy and calmness to a passing student's weary day. They killed the sighs of some student at the sight of its falling flowers, white and delicately tinged with an amorous pink. For the writer who sits on the pubroom's corridor ledge, they killed the backdrop of his subject whom he observed day in and day out. They killed the glorious light the tree emits during the summer noon. They killed the somber view the tree projects after the rain when almost all the flowers have fallen and the bark turns dark brown, a strark contrast with the vivid green of the elongated leaves.
That Calachuchi tree was so much part of my day to day college existence. Ms. Nette joked that I should go home and have my time to grieve. But I didn't give in to such sentimental bullsugar until now. I'm hoping this passes as a proper goodbye to my beloved Calachuchi. You've never been a nuisance to me, never. Wherever you are, I hope you still serve the purpose for which you were created. Then I'd know that somewhere somehow, you still make someone hopeful and therefore happy.
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