"Helo Helo Na-a Ba Ko Diha?"

"Helo, helo, na-a ba ko diha?" I was just a kid. I was in front of the tape recorder asking.
My parents have this creative idea of preserving our happy childhood moments. From the time my kuya and I were born, my parents recorded our voices in a casette tape. So, I heard how I cried when I came out of my mother. I heard my first laughter.

They squeezed our baby skins us to make us cry. They ran their fingers all over our vein-loaded body areas us to make us laugh; all just for the record. Ha ha ha, maybe my parents should have been journalists or manipulative investigators.

The recording went on once every year until we reached gradeschool.
I can hear myself say, "uyok man na o, uyok uyok" — a baby-talk of saying "tuyok (rotating) man na o, tuyok-tuyok" As tod, I was pointing at the two small reels of the tape inside the boom box cassette.

There are a lot of funny words I made and they all still make me smile, if not laugh, today. Oh, yes! I have a happy childhood.

Now one of those recorded blah blahs turned out to be a romantic line today, and that is ….
"Hello, hello, na-a ba ko diha?" (Hello, hello, am I there?)

It is now what my wife-to-be and I use to open each call. She find it sweet and I find it lovely. We both reply, "Yes, you’re here."

And that makes the entity of of the leas, dales, and seas that divide us go "POOF!!!" …. like they never existed.

"Yes, you’re here."