My brother Jonas walked into our unit a little before 5am this morning.  I had just gone to bed and hadn’t fallen asleep yet when he came in.  I heard him saying something to Jenjen, our househelp, about one of my staff while I was still working at The Wave Ballroom.  This employee had passed away early this morning.  David couldn’t understand what he was hearing, so I translated my brother’s words to him.  Kulot had passed away. This boy was so young!  He’s barely 22 years old!  I just couldn’t describe the grief in me at that very moment.

Let me tell you about this boy.  JR, or “Kulot”, which means “curly”, as he is fondly called, is almost a brother to us.  He grew up together with our youngest brother, Harold.  He spent most of growing up days hanging around with Harold wherever he went. They were playmates, they were real buddies.   He almost lived in our house!

About 4 years ago, when my mom decided to start a Ballroom-Restaurant business, Kulot wanted to be counted in.  He began as the janitor, the cleaner, and the errand boy.  He worked hard.  For a measly allowance of P100 a day, he was doing more than what we expected from him.  We were so impressed by his enthusiasm with his work.  We then decided to give him a little break.  We began having him trained as a reliever for the waiter at the dining area.  He continuously proved his worth as an employee.  He was trustworthy, flexible and easy to teach. Eventually, we decided that he was ripe enough to become a Bartender.  He quickly learned all the cocktail mixes by heart, and soon enough, he took over the bar completely.  I do admit, I would reprimand him every now and then about his inventories, but that was really all part of his learning experience.

Now Kulot is gone.  Gone at a very young age.    I was so touched when Harold asked me a question I had no answer to…”why didn’t he wait first till another Kulot was born?” I guess, maybe it was his time.  We don’t know.  We will never know when our own time is up.  These are questions that are always left unanswered.  We all need to be prepared.  I just wish he had more time, more time to experience the future, more time live his life.

Whenever I think of things like this, I always realize how fortunate I am to be alive.  Alive at this very moment, to be writing this post.   Let’s all thank God for this life we have, and let’s live each day like it was our very last.

As I end this post, we would like to extend our condolences to the family of the late Virgilio Aguilar Jr., a.k.a “Kulot”.

Here are the last pics we were able to take with Kulot on my last day at The Wave Ballroom last year, July 31, 2006

Good bye, Kulot…

Tears In Heaven Lyrics