LEARNING MOMENT

High school in the US was life changing for me. I suddenly went from a hero, here in the Philippines, to a zero, in the US. Blame it on ethnicity, culture, or whatever, point is things changed for me.

I became a nerd.

It was hard to find someone else to pick on since everybody seemed bigger. The culture was different. We had to find someone to pick on, someone "inferior" to us to be accepted as normal. Us weak ones found our someone.

Noel.

In the food chain of my youth, I was worm, but Noel was amoeba. He smelled, had no friends, was in special classes, stuttered, and talked weird things. He was a real push over. Everyone wanted to pick on him. I guess, it was to show to everybody else that "yeah! We are cool since we have someone to bully!"

Noel was the answer to all our insecurities. Someone we can say is lower than us. Someone to pick on to prove to ourselves that our lives are not as crappy as we see it to be.

One time in the library, we bumped into each other, he was reading a Spiderman comic book. I didn't know if he was talking to me (perish the thought that I get caught talking to him!) but he said that if he had powers, he would come back and get even with everybody.

Junior year, Noel didn't come back to school. He transferred out. No one knew where. Maybe it was all the constant humiliation (one time someone sprayed fart spray on his hair during lunch), bullying, and taunting that he got. I remember seeing his father in one of those student-parent meetings, his father looked very concerned and had a long talk with ourcounselorr. At that time, I don't know if I felt sorry for his father but now, as a parent myself, I am.

Anyway, after reading the comment of Sinta on Blogger Power, I remembered him.

I wonder what became of him. How all of this affected his life. If I saw him now, I would apologize to him on how we treated him. No matter what his faults and shortcomings were, he didn't deserve to be treated like that. But I guess it's too late. The damage has been done.

Justice? Quid pro quo, baby, Quid pro quo.

To Noel C of Sacred Heart, class of '87: Please accept my most humble and sincerest apology. I should have treated you the same respect and dignity that everybody deserves.