Rambling Flower

As another year fades into the background, everyone’s sharing their recaps. I love looking at mine, especially the music. Not every song carries deep meaning (sometimes it’s just a vibe), but there are always a few tracks that somehow hold a piece of the year.

So when my music app told me my number one song for 2025 was “Multo” by Cup of Joe, I wasn’t surprised.

Truth be told, I’ve been obsessed. “Multo” settled in my heart, and it looks like it’s staying.

I first heard it through a trending Instagram reel that used a few lines from the chorus. Most of the reels were about relationship heartbreaks. The exes, the ones that got away, the almosts.

I assumed that was the whole message of the song and didn’t bother listening to the full tune. As I get older, I find myself clinging more to the songs of my childhood and teenage years. Nostalgia brought comfort. Exploring new music suddenly feels like it requires more energy, more openness, more courage. So, unless something really pulls me in, I tend to stay inside the familiar.

Then one day, I finally had the mental and emotional space to sit with something new. I was craving a Tagalog song, something that can sit quietly with me. So I played it.

Man.

Within seconds, I realized the reels I saw didn’t even scratch the surface.

“Multo” wasn’t just about broken relationships. It struck something deeper, somewhere I wasn’t prepared to go that day.

It spoke to me about grief.

About losing someone.

About death and the way it haunts you long after the world thinks you’ve “moved on.”

I was calm when it started, but halfway through I was suddenly crying. I was having an average day, and one song cracked me wide open.

That’s grief. Unpredictable, uninvited, wild.

There were specific lines that gutted me. Lines that didn’t just land, they lingered.

“Binaon naman na ang lahat. Tinakpan naman na ‘king sugat

Ngunit ba’t ba andito pa rin? Hirap na ’kong intindihin.”

When I heard that, it felt like someone read my insides out loud.

Because… yes.

I already buried my dad, literally lowered him to the ground.

I tended my wounds. Made space for the pain. I did all the grief work I knew.

But it’s never enough. The ache still shows up even when life is moving beautifully.

“Kahit sa’n man mapunta ay anino mo’y kumakapit sa ’king kamay.”

God. That line.

Wherever I go, even when I’m full of fun and gratitude, there’s a moment when I remember he’s not there to see it. He’s not there to experience what I’m experiencing.

It’s like you’re having the best day, and suddenly grief taps you on the shoulder, reminding you that joy will always have a shadow.

Not to ruin it.

Just to say: “I’m still here.”

And that last line…

“Ako ay dahan-dahang nililibing nang buhay pa.”

…that one hit in a different place.

Because that’s exactly what grief feels like sometimes.

Not dramatic, not loud. Just this quiet, suffocating heaviness. A slow burial.

When my dad died, it wasn’t just him I buried. A version of me was buried, too.

The version of me who still had a father.

The version of me who can feel joy without it echoing.

The version of me who can be content without the undertone of longing.

I don’t think people talk enough about how grief kills the past version of you, and how you’re forced to live on as someone slightly altered. Not broken. Just changed.

I still feel joy. I still laugh. But they don’t land the same way anymore.

They have texture now.

Shadows. Edges.

And maybe that’s what the song meant.

That the weight of loss buries parts of you even as you move, breathe, travel, laugh, and exist. You learn to live with that slow burial. You learn to live after the version of you who didn’t know this kind of grief.

But even with the heaviness it stirred, I found comfort in the song.

It became my go-to for weeks. I’d listen to it on loop. Every time a new live performance came out, I’d drop everything just to watch it.

At some point, it stopped being “just a song” and turned into something I reached for,  the way you reach for a blanket or a familiar scent. I wasn’t just obsessed with it, I was held by it. It gave me something steady to return to on the days when the grief sat closer to the surface.

Then one day, I saw a video of Cup of Joe accepting Song of the Year for ‘Multo’. Well-deserved. During the speech, one of them smiled and said:

“Sana hindi kayo makalaya.”

I found myself smiling too.

Yes. Exactly that.

I don’t want to break free from grief.

Because what a strange privilege it is to grieve someone. Grief is love. To grieve is to love. It’s a painful, stubborn reminder of connection and care. It’s uncomfortable and brutal, but it means you lived and loved deeply. It means someone mattered that much.

And here’s the thing I only realized recently: grief isn’t always pain.

Sometimes it’s warmth. Sometimes it’s memory. Sometimes it’s the soft reminder of all the good things about the person you lost.

The joy they brought, the quiet ways they loved you, the small traditions they unknowingly passed on. I see traces of my dad in the things I do, in the values I’ve held onto, and even in the things I now teach my own child.

One of those things is Christmas.

When my dad passed, I surprisingly found myself having a better relationship with the holiday. Not because his absence made anything easier. Far from it.

But because I finally understood where all the Christmas magic of my childhood came from. It was him. Along with my mom, he made sure our holidays felt festive, warm, alive.

And this was despite the fact that we didn’t have much. He worked with whatever we had, and somehow it was always enough.

Now, every time I decorate and plan for Christmas, it’s my way of honoring him. It’s my way of continuing something he started.

A quiet tradition that reminds me that grief isn’t just sadness, it’s also love carried forward.

Grief is devastating, yes. But it’s also deeply human. It carries beauty alongside the ache.

Two truths can exist together, and I can carry both at once.

I don’t want to get rid of grief.

Even if on some days, it tightens my chest and brings me anxiety.

Even if on some days, it reminds me of the things I should’ve said, should’ve done.

I don’t want it gone. Because grief is my reminder that I can love, that I have loved, that I was loved back.

And what a luxury that is.

Grief is a forever companion, one I’m learning to befriend. I want to be comfortable in its presence, because the alternative is forgetting, and I’d rather ache than forget my dad.

Maybe that’s the real lesson this song gave me: to carry the ache and let it remind me of love.

Oo. Sana hindi ako makalaya. Dahil ayoko rin.