| In Memory of MikoMiko Reimu; A short storytelling and reflection upon a good friend | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 26 2013, 01:48 AM (479 Views) | |
| Khorinthian | Aug 26 2013, 01:48 AM Post #1 |
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Human villager
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Firstly, let me tell you of MikoMiko Reimu's (Mark Nicholson's) hidden story - the story that he kept hidden from us persistently. This is all from his grandmother, with whom certain members of the Division have had the privilege of talking with, exclusively, during his rites, burial and 9th day celebration. Everything else concerning is from my father, who wanted to extend his condolences to Mark's family, and who admired Mark when he heard of his story. Now, we all know MikoMiko Reimu as the jolly CAPSLOCK-loving, randomly-bantering, fun-hogging, ship-sailing bastard. We know that, despite his extremely happy disposition, he worked at some really bad places like a Karinderya, a siopao-making plant, etc. Despite that, we loved him as a dear friend. His energy made us feel engaged, made us feel at home, and most especially, made us feel accepted. However, whenever we asked about his real life, he always seemed to avoid the discussion. This is his story, as well as grateful feedback from my own father, who liked this story. ![]() First of all, he was born somewhere between 1993-1995. Not even one year later, he was abandoned by his mother and left under the "care" of the father. Now, the father wasn't at all "caring". Instead, he was physically abused by him; bullied and beaten-up as a child (no, not as a baby you demented dipshits). To get him away from this, he was taken under the care of his loving grandparents and was raised by them like he was their own son. Now, they did not have the blessings of a stable income, and both the old man and old lady worked hard to crawl Mark through school. The grandmother would tearfully recall of how she would loan money from people whenever Mark needed anything. But she told us that he was not at all needy. In fact Mark was always shy to ask for things, which if we would recall, it was a trait that he showed us. In fact, most of his clothes were hand-me-downs or gifts from his uncle, who also cared for him. One of the fond memories of his Grandmother of that time was when he was put into a seminary, he told her that he would pray for his parents for leaving him. Then his grandfather died. This was a big shock to him and his grandmother, where she would recall the both of them crying together near his grave for a long time after the burial. There were several results from the death, and one was that Mark couldn't continue studying anymore because of their lack of money. And so, he started to work. He worked at many different places, from Siopao-making plants to an eatery. This was near the time when he met us, and joined the PTL, and eventually move on to the Touhou PH Division. Most of everything else is history, but the grandmother often spoke of the many things Miko was and wasn't. At their place, he was called a useless child who had no future, and had no friends. He took remarks like "mabaho" or "bobo" often. But apparently he never fought back, and just took everything without so much as a slight rebuttal. That was why, when he died, the grandmother became indifferent. She had nothing to prove that Mark was a good kid. As far as she knew, because Mark was always so quiet and never really talked much about himself, he had no friends. When we arrived at the house during a Friday night, nobody knew us. We just went in while everyone was staring, looked at the coffin and saw the state the cause of his death left him. Some of us started crying, or just started sobbing. The room where the coffin was in was small, and barely fit 10 of us. Regardless, we took up the tight space to see our departed friend. Moments later, probably curious as to who came into the room to look at the dead, the grandmother approached us and asked us who we were. And we answered simply. "We are his friends". At that moment, she burst into tears, and clung to us, crying out "I thought my grandson was indeed useless! But look at how many friends he has!" She stayed this way (and I was crying with her) for a long while until a ceremony started where we had to quiet down for the priest to perform his blessings. After that, she talked with most of us, and admired how Mark has friends from many different walks of life. However, we never really got to talk about Mark until the day of the burial, which was held today, since we had to leave early last Friday. Then came the day of the burial. For the first half of the day, nothing was out of the ordinary. Rather late, we had to stand at the back of the church until the procession started. The grandmother invited and insisted that we, his friends, take the position at the immediate rear of the vehicle carrying his coffin. The walk lasted for about half an hour until we arrived at the nearby cemetery where he was to lay down to rest. Then, the usual; the carrying of the infants across the coffin and the releasing of white balloons, encouraging his soul up towards the heavens. Then came the offerings. Now, usually the offerings would be placed into the tomb in order; first the offerings of the church; a wide spread of white flowers for the departed, then lastly the offerings of his loved ones. Honestly, I was irritated at that time. None of his relatives offered him anything to take with him to the next life. The gifts given by TPD was probably the only thing that prevented me from speaking up at that time. This is one of the reasons why I love how our group turned out to be; for being able to give our own offerings, in accordance to the person, to our dearly-departed. To the grave, the following were given: >The Dragon Install mix; an alcoholic cocktail that his friends promised him that they would partake in come December's celebration. >Drawings; personal messages to him >Coffee; because he needed to stay awake for the journey, right? >Chocolates; because he loved chocolates >USB Flashdisk; contained his favorite games, which included TH12.3, TH13.5, Melty Blood, Phantasy Star Online 2 and Grief Syndrome. >Bouquet; a large one, which completes the common trend of offerings. The grandmother at the time couldn't hold her tears, and she started crying again. Really hard this time. And we stayed with her, even until everybody else has already gone back. Even until it started raining, we stayed behind to offer the grandmother a shoulder to cry on. It was the death of a dear friend, so in my opinion it was the least we could have done. She then informed us that today was his 9th day celebration (I dunno, some Christian stuff), and she wanted to go through with it. She wanted to, at first, celebrate it with the choir, but then decided against it and decided that maybe she should spend it alone. Of course, that's just wrong, so we offered to celebrate with her, wherein she consented and we went off to the nearby fast food restaurant. There, she told us more stories about the guy; of how he took more shifts at work so that he could save up money to go with the group on the Batangas trip, of how, instead of resting on his off-days, he would go to the internet cafe instead to play with us, and the like. In turn, we told her stories of Mark's exploits and shenanigans. Talking with us, she said, has made her feel a part of how Mark felt whenever he was with us, and it made her happy as well; that it would definitely help her sleep better at night. So, thanks everyone. We were able to send off Mark in as best way as we can manage, and we could not have done it without everyone's help. And of course, our tributaries were given to the grandmother, and she thanked us wholeheartedly. ![]() Now here is my father's feedback after hearing this story. I wanted to include this because it really hits close to home, and I'm sure everybody would appreciate this. His feedback on why Mark never told us about his own life and never told his beloved grandmother about us >It's because he cherished us all that he did not want to create misunderstandings between the two sides. It's common for guardians to have a bad misconception about people you just met from the internet, and in turn, it's also common for normal people to have misconceptions about the person's past when hearing about how he was abandoned by his parents. In that sense, his maturity astounds me. Because he may have already understood this in advance. His feedback on why he spend his rest days from work on the internet, chatting and playing with us instead of resting >It's because that was his way of resting; to spend time with everyone in your group. Maybe you people never noticed it, but hearing the story, I imagine that he must have cared and treated you all as his real family. So instead of lying down in a bed and letting loose his fatigue, it made him more relaxed when he spent time with the people he loved. His feedback upon hearing that Mark took multiple shifts just to save up enough money for the Batangas trip >That was because it was his heartfelt desire to spend a memorable occasion with you guys. In that sense, during that trip, and considering his circumstances back at his own home, he probably enjoyed that trip a hundred times more than each and every one of you there combined. Because not only was it a time spent with you, his friends, but also because it was a hard-earned happiness. His general feedback on his death >You should take it like this. For a person who was abandoned by his mother at an early age, abused by his father, crawled by his grandparents for education, lost his grandfather before he finished school, he was able to find true friends like you people. Because undoubtedly, your group of friends were his family. But now that he's dead, instead of mourning for him, you should appreciate and look up to him. Because he was a man who endured a lot of suffering throughout his life, but despite that kept on trying to pull himself up and eventually was able to attain a hard-earned prize; real friends who care about him; enough that they would be willing to spend hours of travel and walk under the hot dry sun and bathe under the rain just to see their friend off. Also admire his strength, for even when his real life caused him a lot of stress and suffering, he let none of that get through to make you notice. Because he did not want his friends to worry about him. So do your best in life, because that is the least you could do for him. Admire that person who, despite starting with almost nothing in his life, was able to touch, maybe even move the lives of many people. ![]() Parting words from his loving grandmother and uncle: Thank you so much, his friends. Because you were able to give him the happiness that we could never have dreamed of being able to give him. But most of all, thank you so much, everyone, for letting Nicko (Mark) experience being a person, instead of the trash everybody else thought he was. Edited by Khorinthian, Aug 26 2013, 09:56 AM.
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| Khorinthian | Aug 26 2013, 02:09 AM Post #2 |
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Human villager
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Wait, I forgot one of the things my father said. "Stop mourning for him also, because instead of the sadness of death, you should remind yourselves that he is instead having his well-earned rest after all that suffering he's been through" |
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| RekishiSensei | Aug 26 2013, 11:51 AM Post #3 |
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Spirited Away
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Miko loves his grandpa so much His grandpa is his inspiration His grandpa loves playing his PS1 Really pro in RE3, also the one who taught him tips and tricks in RE3 Can't really recall but his grandpa died at 60 I think Miko visits his grandpa's grave from time to time |
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