Christmas 2014 Family Picture

 The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with kindness and good will become for us the magic of Christmas. A Blessed and Happy Christmas 2014 to one and all!

An Intimate Letter from God to us

92nd Dad's Birthday Memorial

A Happy, Heavenly Birthday For Our Dad!

Today is our Dad's 92nd Birthday Memorial and in behalf of my siblings and the rest of the family circle I want to honor anew the person who amplified the adjectives GREAT/AWESOME and made a tremendous impact on our lives.
We thank God for giving us a wonderful father like our Dad who has impressed upon us a foundation upon which to raise our own families – a lasting legacy to pass on to the next generation. He passed on to us an incredible heritage that provided a platform to learn, grow, and enrich ourselves to become what we are today.

At first, I thought it would be impossible to pinpoint one action that made him a great father, but after hundreds of precious memories of him inundating my mind these past few weeks, I found myself always coming back to one simple, yet incredibly powerful action: LOVE. He rarely said, “I love you,” but he demonstrated it tirelessly and unconditionally in different ways. Mostly, I remember that he loved our Mom so much, and watching him how he treated her in a loving, devoted fashion has had a profound impact on our own respective family life. His deep and abiding love for his family and steady commitment to his secular jobs and spiritual endeavors were visible examples of what it truly means to be “ great and awesome person”. By the same token, the values of kindness, forbearance, and humility ingrained in us by our Dad have allowed my siblings and I to move in a more purposeful direction and guide us in the course of life.

My siblings and I always find ourselves missing our Dad so very much. The grief still comes along once in awhile, but the joy in the memories treasured by all of us gently pushes aside the blues. Deep inside our hearts are the fond memories of him shaping our characters and morals. We miss him. We miss him dancing and singing with our Mom with gusto. We miss him playing a variety of musical instruments - piano, violin, guitar, harmonica and whatnots. Yes, we miss him after all these years.
He was a dedicated and conscientious man who worked so hard and made sacrifices for his family. He set his goals high and accomplished them no matter how hard or impossible they seemed. He kept our family together; kept a roof over our heads, provided food in our stomachs, supported a great deal of our education and supplied us things more than we need to survive. More than being a doting father, he was a teacher, minister, and provider. He was a great husband, father and grandfather. He's the family's champion - a pillar of strength and discipline. He motivated us to do our best in everything. He played an important role in our spiritual life - instilling in us God’s enduring principles of faith, hope and love on the road to life.

God has blessed him with a good head on his shoulders and natural talent for leadership . He applied these God given gifts creatively and with a strength of purpose that inspired all of us and everyone who knew him. His extraordinary and multifaceted career filled us with awe and admiration. We have always esteemed his academic achievements, tried to be like him, and be our own persons the way he was.

He was a man of few words. All the life lessons we learned from him were not enlightened through words but through deeds. He was the kind of person who shunned lengthy reprimands whenever we committed actions against his moral values instead, he set an example for everyone to follow. It was the way he lived his life that taught us how to confront life's intricacies. He never followed the crowd but his conscience. He never compromised his principles.

He was more than a father- he's the cherished person next to Mom. And he will live forever in our hearts. He is worthy of our praise and accolades - not only because of everything he has done for us, but also because of who he was. And we trust that he has earned his place in heaven. We know that one day we will be together again on a new journey.

Unlike the previous years that I wrote about my Dad , this year my thoughts and emotions are much different. I still miss seeing his smile, hearing his laughter and experiencing his genuine zest for life, but today I feel a new connection, and sadly, also an incredible longing for him. As a song goes, " I hear the echo of your voice, reach for you as if you're here - your tender touch, your warm embrace; I still can see your face, you are the one I can't replace and though it's been so many years, I still can see your face."

We love you Dad. Happy birthday!

( This is me and my Dad when I was five years old - I will always be his little angel "" and he will always be my hero )

Trust His Heart with Lyrics (By: Babbie Mason)

We will not lean to our own understanding, because when the road gets rough, we may not always understand, but God knows and understands totally.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him,and he will make your paths straight - Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)

Palawan Adventure 2014

My 60th Birthday: An Amazing Celebration of Life

My 60th Birthday Bash with my family at PF Chang's with its Pricey and Huge Horse

You are looking at a picture with a gigantic horse behind us. It is one of P.F. Chang’s China Bistro horses which is found outside or in the entry of most of the chain’s location around the world. My family and I had never stepped foot into a P.F.Chang’s before and it’s not on our to-do-list yet. I know what some of my friends are thinking right now. Good healthy food at a Chinese restaurant? Is the food really that great and delectable? Someone told us the lettuce wraps were the best. Is it as expensive as we hear it is? Now more than ever, we are trying to go green in our meals simply because of the abnormally high levels in our blood chemistry test results. So for that reason, Chinese food should be knocked off our menu. Not anymore when we learned that the restaurant uses absolutely no MSG in their dishes. Not only that, there are fantastic options for vegan and gluten-free customers as well. And although the resto is not a nut-free environment, they can prepare meals for people who have nut or shellfish allergies. And because yesterday was a special day to celebrate life with my family we opted to try and experience P.F. Chang’s with a fresh palette.It is known the world over for their lettuce wraps and that was the first thing we tried. The lettuce wraps were…let me put it this way - I was polite and ate two. But I would have been happy to clean the plate off all on my own. There were that good! My children were blown away!

My verdict :
With so many Chinese restaurants in Metro Manila, P.F. Chang is just one of the better places to eat American-Chinese cuisine. It's good but nothing super special except the lettuce wraps. It's not a place that you wake up thinking "I can't wait to go again!"

But I do like the horse –it's my Chinese astrological sign after all - an expensive horse at that ! And the best part of it all : I availed of a SC discount privileges even without presenting a SC card. The PF Chang’s management only required me to present any cards that show a senior citizen’s age and/or birthdate. Isn't that' cool? hahaha

 

        Coffee time with my siblings and sisters-in-law after a sumptuous lunch at PF Chang's Shangrila 

    My eldest son's birthday gift 

My Musings for Today

Have I ever felt like God is not for me? Did any circumstance tempt me to doubt God’s love? Were there spiritual/emotional forces or persons have I felt were against me? How did God reveal His love for me? These are the questions that haunt me. But, God in His goodness has led me to read in the scriptures enlightening me about the truth that evil will never ultimately prevail. I may feel defeated today, but the encouraging words taken from Romans 8:31 became my life verse because it brought me much comfort and confidence.

Have a blessed Saturday guys!

I Love My Children To The Moon and Back!

I can’t believe my four sons are all grown ups. It seems just like yesterday when they were knee-high to a grasshopper and I used to share children's books with them at bedtime - it was a fun, warm and loving experience reading aloud to them these stories from Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat, Fox in Socks, Guess How Much I love You, etc.Wow! How time flies! I can truly say that the happiest time of my life was when they were little ones and carefree. I say that the best thing I did for them was to allow them to do things for themselves, allow them to be strong, experience life on their own terms…let them be better persons, let them believe more in themselves. I don't know where those splendid days went. And I just feel emotionally ambivalent these days - desperately missing them in their cute, little, excited for everything and anything toddler and little boy phases.I'm anxious - and it's difficult for me to go into another phase of life as they go into their respective new chapter of their life. Having used about the house filled with children is a wonderful thing for most of us moms. I'm getting edgy how time is growing closer for my children to be launched to lead their own lives. Eventually, I have to let go of them. But one thing is certain " I'm mad about them - I love them to the moon and back!

Why Do I Write

Reading the written works of one of my favorite spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen, has affirmed and reaffirmed me that writing itself reveals to us what is alive  in us. According to him, the deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. And i agree with him that to write is to begin on a journey whose final destination is unknown. Thus, writing requires a real act of trust. We have to say to ourselves, “ I do not yet know what I carry in my heart , but I trust that it will emerge as I write.”  It is like giving away the few loaves and fishes one has, trusting that they will multiply in the giving. Once we dare to give away on paper or online the few insights that come to us, we start recognizing how much is hidden underneath these thoughts and gradually come in touch with our own riches.

Yes, I love writing. I have been writing since elementary school and my  very first ever  written work  at the age of 8  – a poem  ( sadly i forgot the title) which was posted  in my school’s newsletter.

I write purposefully  or by accident and promptings where  there is pen and paper and type writer machine and nowadays where there are smartphones, ipads,  laptops or personal computer within reach.

Why?

To reminisce. To dig into my past.

To be seen and heard.

To expose the person that hides inside me.

To inspire and illuminate the way for other people who walk in darkness

To calm down a mind that dashes.

To be close to those I love.

I love to write because I am sentimental,  nostalgic, and demand happy endings.
I love to write because my heart speaks a different language that someone needs to hear.
I love  to write past the embarrassment of exposure.
I love to write because hypocrisy does not need answers, rather it needs questions to heal. 
I love to write myself out of  fantasy, dreams and nightmares.

I want to write

Knowing conversations don’t always take place.
Because speaking can’t be reread.
Because my passions are volatile and ever-changing
Knowing I will fall on my words, but no one will say it was for very long.
Because I want to paint the world the way I see God’s love and goodness should be.

Knowing I will be wiped out by my own words, stabbed by critics, persecuted by both misunderstanding and understanding

To leave a legacy.
To make sense out of senselessness.. 

I like to write for the dreamers, the lovers, the lonely,  the wounded , the abandoned and the haters.
I like to write

Because one day someone will tell me that my sentiments, views and posture  were not a waste of time. 
Because God loves different chapters of a story.

I like to write because one day I will be gone, but what I believed, imagined  and felt will live on.

Mother's Day 2014 Celebration

                                       Lunch Buffet at Heat, EDSA Shangri-la Hotel

                                         
                                               At the Lobby Lounge, EDSA Shangri-la Hotel

                                                   Outside the Heat, EDSA Shangri-la Hotel

                                         Family Lunch Buffet at HEAT, EDSA Shangri-la Hotel

                                                           Lobby of EDSA Shangri-la Hotel

                        Visiting the graves of our Mom, Dad and Golda at Manila Memorial Holy Cross Park

Mother's Day 2014 Message for our Mom

A Mother's Day Without You, Mom

Four years ago today was the first Mother's day we didn't get to spend with you.
Four years ago today we knew that the next Mother's day we would spend without you either.
Four years ago today we began a long downward journey into emptiness, depression and grief.
Today we will continue to honor you and pay homage to your amazing feat as one incredible mother who fought a good fight for us - one who demonstrated extraordinary strength, courage, dedication and love. We want to honor you by thanking God for the many Mother's Days we did spend with one another and for the powerful and positive impact you had upon our life each and every day you lived.

Thank you for always being there for us. Thank you for giving this whole motherhood thing your all. We sure do appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts.
And, as always, we miss you like crazy.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. We love you to the moon and back.