Yes, I still think about you on your birthday. No, I won’t greet you with a happy one.

Marahuyo Dela Cruz 

As the clock strikes midnight, it marks the beginning of your birthday. A date I wish I could forget, yet somehow never can.  

The numbers sit on the screen, heavy and immovable, a stubborn reminder of a day that is still solely about you.

I can never truly erase you from my mind, as we shared countless heartwarming and joyous moments together, building a world out of inside jokes and late-night promises. 

Each of those memories, once a source of happiness, feels like a bittersweet echo of what used to be. The good ones don’t hurt any less for being good; if anything, they cut deeper because they remind me of how effortless it all used to feel.

Yet, year after year, your birthday remains anchored to my digital calendar, but I can never really get myself to delete it. Not because I am lazy, but because some part of me knows that removing it would be its own kind of admission. 

It would be acknowledging that I am no longer the person you wish to celebrate with, a finality I can’t quite stomach, and deleting those digits is proof that I am ready to let go of the person I loved — and I am still not sure I am.

So yes, I still think about you on your birthday. But I won’t greet you with a happy one. Instead, I’ll do what I’ve quietly learned to do. I will open social media, look at the screen, and watch your life unfold in pictures. 

I’ll observe your world from a safe, aching distance, the way I once watched it up close. I will learn to let go and celebrate you silently from afar, accepting that I am no longer a part of your life moving forward.