MISSED IN A SECOND

Yesterday, my brother-in-law, Kuya Bert, together with his sons, my beloved nephews Brean and Brent, was supposed to join a Parish Run for a Cause 2024 hosted by San Pedro Poveda Parish in Catalunan Pequeno, Davao City. The call time was 3 AM, which was challenging for me because I'm not a morning person. Some days I wake up early, and other days I wake up late, with the latter being more frequent. However, Kuya Bert thought it would be better to get there by 5 AM because that’s when the actual race would start, and the hours before that would be mostly announcements and Zumba to warm up. I wanted to be there from the start, but since Kuya Bert was in charge, I didn’t argue about it.

I woke up at 4 AM, and we left at quarter to 5 AM, but we had to stop at his friend's house to pick up his custom-made long sleeves because he was also taking an oath as a Lay Minister later that day. Unfortunately, after almost 20 minutes, his friend still seemed to be asleep. We got to the venue ten minutes past 5 AM. Just as we entered the gate, the participants started running. He said it was the 5K run, which gave me some relief because we were in the 3K run, which was supposed to start afterward.

He went inside to register and later came back to us saying that the participants who had started running when we arrived were actually in the 3K run, which meant we had missed our chance. I could see the disappointment on Brean's face, but I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t surprised because we had already missed the first half of the event, so missing the last half wasn’t too much to handle. Just like Murphy's Law states, "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong," and that’s exactly what happened.

This is why I'm so time-conscious. I'm so conscious of time that I prefer to arrive at an event half an hour or sometimes even an hour early so I won't miss anything. Nevertheless, it should be a lesson for us, especially for the kids, that it’s not just about the importance of the event; what’s important is to be there before it starts and to stay until it ends.