ETHER DIARIES

Apart from the photo album, my tita who was sorting through my mom’s things handed me an ugly green shower curtain. It had butterflies and white lilies printed on it, the kind of design you only buy when you are in a rush or when the store has nothing else left. I stared at it and honestly wondered why, out of everything my mom owned, this was the item she thought I should have. She also handed me my mom’s jewelry box, which would have been more exciting if it came with a secret stash of cash, a code to a safe, or a map to buried treasure. But no. It was the green shower curtain. And if I asked my tita why she chose to give me this of all things, she would probably shrug and say she had no idea either.

Today happened to be one of those rare weekdays when I had no referrals and no university work waiting for me. I used the master bathroom and noticed how dirty it had become. Water marks on the tiles, splashes on the mirror, the kind of mess you only notice when you finally slow down. For the past eight months that I have lived here, I never bothered installing a shower curtain because the place is being renovated anyway. The plan is to replace everything with a tempered glass partition, so I figured there was no point.

Then I remembered the curtain my tita gave me. And I remembered my mom telling me, more than once, to change the shower curtain in my old place because it was already full of molds. During one of her visits, she even told me she bought a new one from a flea market but forgot to bring it.

I paused in the middle of the bathroom and tried to remember where I kept the curtain. I found it tucked under my closet. I unfolded it slowly, the plastic smell rising as the fabric loosened. I took the rings that came with it and started hooking each hole, one by one. The curtain felt cold and stiff in my hands. When I lifted it and placed it on the rod, something in me cracked open. My eyes filled before I could stop them. My heart wanted to speak to her, to say, “Thank you, Mom. The shower curtain made it to me. I’m using it now.”

In a few weeks, the entire bathroom will be demolished. The tiles, the fixtures, the rod, all of it will be gone. There will be no need for a shower curtain. But I still put it up. Even though my mom is gone, she still finds small ways to let her love reach me. I may only be using it for a short moment, but that is what you do when you long for someone. Every bit of love they left behind becomes something you hold onto, even briefly. Today, that feeling arrived in the form of an ugly green shower curtain with butterflies and lilies.

I stood there for a while, just looking at it. It didn’t match the tiles. It didn’t match anything, really. But it felt right. It felt like her. And in that small, ordinary moment, I realized something I keep learning over and over: love doesn’t stop. It just changes shape. Sometimes it shows up in memories, sometimes in stories, and sometimes in a simple curtain someone forgot to bring years ago.