I’ve been in and out of the hospital for the past three weeks for a series of tests, but it’s not really as bad as it sounds. I probably could’ve finished all of it in three days if the new President hadn’t been so stingy with holidays.

Anyway, my doctor has ruled on what is wrong with my (literally) broken heart: a mild case of mitral valve prolapse. She explained it simply: that the mitral valve has one leaflet longer than the other and doesn’t close as smoothly as it ought to, causing what I experience as shortness of breath, chest pains, and other such “discomfort.”

It’s a syndrome, she said casually, and the best you can do for yourself is: 1) Get enough rest, i.e., skip chores; 2) Sleep early, i.e., don’t cram; and 3) Lay off the coffee, I…err…I nodded and said okay. Then she added, with a very sincere smile: You’re even allowed to go skydiving and stuff; it won’t kill you. Kthanksbye, I said. Then we left.

Now, if there is one thing you must know about me, it is this: I am a heavy drinker.

There is nothing — okay, almost nothing, next to a good book — that I enjoy, love, cherish as much as I do coffee. I’ve been drinking coffee since I was old enough to pronounce the word, and rely on it for the completion of my daily tasks, namely, reading through thousands of pages of Philosophy and writing papers. And to drink no more coffee would be quite a significant change. I figured it wouldn’t be as bad as not being allowed to read, so I shrugged and left it at that.

Anyway, after we left, Mama decided to take me to the grocery store nearby. She said it was because her dad used to buy her stuff after a visit to the hospital, like maybe an apple or candy. Papa and I made sure we missed no aisle as I filled our trolley with assorted chocolates, chocolate-flavored soy milk, chocolate spread, and several travel packs of tissue. I was on a roll, like a child let loose in Willy Wonka’s factory, or one of those little kids in Toys R Us in that episode of Oprah. That was, until we hit the coffee aisle.

They had Illy’s, Starbucks, Lavazza, Nescafe and — something that can only happen in any coffee-lover’s dream — stacks and stacks of Dunkin Donut’s Medium Roast. They had coffee in powder, coffee beans, coffee cans, and ready-to-drink coffee in little bottles. I looked up — the shelves stood stories above me, dwarfing me with their might, engulfing me with their presence. I stared at them all, the friends I knew so well — this brand if you want cheap and fast; this variety if you want your coffee sweet and iced; this variety if you want it bold. I had the same twinkle in my eye as when I stumble upon a rare book as I walked, entranced, with those shelves lining either side of me. But I was rudely awakened by the memory of my doctor’s voice ringing through the grocery store with all the force, the pain, inflicted like a million tiny knives, of a splash of ice-cold water on my face: coffee and I were breaking up.

I had to ask Mama and Papa to give me a moment. It was going to be painful.

It was the first time I was hit with the gravity of what I was being asked to give up: coffee tumblers, coffee candy, coffee-flavored ice cream, coffee pie, coffee buns! Iced coffee, frappucinos, a cup of good old Americano in the early morning.

I remembered my first ever cup of home-made coffee, my first encounter with coffee shops at Starbucks Glorietta 4, the three-planners-a-year doses at Christmastime, the 3-in-1’s I kept in my apartment, the distinct flavor of the beans from every coffee shop I visited from Bataan to Alabang and what I loved uniquely about each brew. Coffee in the bedroom, coffee at the dining table, at the mall, in a meeting. Coffee with cake, coffee with bread, coffee with rice and adobo, coffee and then another cup of coffee, coffee with a good book and a nice view. Coffee. I finally understood how my grandparents felt, being taken away so abruptly from their lechon.

Coffee, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Co-fee.

It peered out from the shelves, pensively beholding me as I said goodbye. Coffee didn’t spit in my face or plead for me to stay; it didn’t say that the lifetime we’ve spent together meant nothing to it and I should just leave because it never really loved me; it didn’t slap me in the face with my now-unfulfilled promises of growing old together. It went well, I suppose, as far as breakups go.

My doctor said it wouldn’t kill me, and I do suppose that she’s right. But with coffee gone, there seems little left to live for. I have never even tasted Kopi Luwak.

And perhaps I never will.

(The author is a fourth year Philosophy major at the University of the Philippines-Diliman)