Colors That Stay
I was telling my youngest sister about a little incident I remembered from when she was around seven years old.
She was drawing while my husband - who was still my boyfriend then - was taking a nap on the couch during one of his visits to our home. When he woke up, she immediately showed him what she had drawn.
Apparently, she didn’t give him much time to figure out what was happening. She held the drawing so close to his face that, when he opened his eyes, all he could see were colors swirling in front of him.
I can just imagine how confused he must have been.
My sister was probably so excited to show him her artwork that it didn’t matter whether he was fully awake or ready to see it. She just wanted her “Kuya Noli” to see what she had made.
It’s such a small, funny memory. But when my sister recently created this artwork in memory of my late husband, that little story came back to me.
(as posted on her Instagram, 13 September 2026)
Looking at the colors in her artwork made me think about how much of life is made up of different colors.
Some seasons are bright and joyful. Some are quiet and ordinary. Some are difficult, and some only make sense when we look back on them with a little more time and perspective.
We don’t always get to choose the colors we are given, but perhaps we do get to choose how we live with them. And sometimes, it is only much later that we realize how meaningful an ordinary moment actually was.
That little story about my sister and my husband was probably nothing remarkable when it happened. There was probably some laughter afterward, and then life simply moved on. But years later, that small moment has become a memory worth keeping.
Maybe that is one of the things I am learning about life: we don’t always recognize the moments that will matter most while we are living them.
We tend to wait for the big occasions - the celebrations, milestones, trips, achievements, and important conversations - to feel that we are really making memories. But often, it is the little things that stay...
When I think about my husband, I realize that much of what I remember about him is made up of ordinary things. His humor. His conversations. His friendships. The way he interacted with people. The little things he did without thinking much about them.
He brought his own colors into the lives of the people around him.
We may never know the impact of our smallest gestures.
A kind word may stay with someone longer than we realize. A little patience may make a difficult day easier. A shared laugh may become a memory years later. And the time we give someone may become something they carry long after we have forgotten the moment ourselves.
We don’t have to do extraordinary things to leave something meaningful behind.
Some colors will stay with us because they made us happy. Some because they taught us something. Some because they were difficult. And some because they came from people who made our lives a little more beautiful simply by being part of them.
My husband Noli will always be one of those colors in my life.
But perhaps the best way to honor the people who have added color to our lives is not simply to remember them. It is to carry what they gave us forward... the laughter, the kindness, the love, the lessons, and the little ways they made ordinary days better.
And then, in our own way, add a little more color to someone else’s life.
Because in the end, that is what makes a life meaningful - not how brightly we shine on our own, but how much light and color we leave in the lives we touch.
