On Death And Dying

And here I thought I would be able to maintain blogging every day this September but it’s not to be. I missed writing  posts for two days.

I went to the  wake of our neighbor who had heart attack. I almost got lost finding where the Loyola Memorial Chapels was. Wrong  info/direction from  his daughter.  Anyway, I reached the place correctly when I inquired from the church workers at St. John the Baptist Parish Church in Taytay, Rizal.  The place was clean, so wide and away from traffic.

It was an unpleasant surprise finding your neighbor who is dead at the age of 77. He was too young to die. And speaking of dying, there is always that unspoken  grief that you feel when a loved one dies. One cannot quantify the loneliness you feel that you wouldn’t be able to see your loved one again except in memories.  Good memories are kept in your heart. The photo album may not suffice, spoken words of sympathy may not be enough but we go on with life in the long run. The pain maybe lessened  but it would always be there.

There are stages of grief that we have to go though.  First there is shock and denial. We could not readily accept that it happened. Then comes the pain and guilt. You wish you could have told them often how  much you love them. You wish you could have talked  to them about their problems  The anger at what happened comes next then depression or loneliness and these depends how strong you are to face such.  Acceptance follows after a while. But some of us do not always experience these stages. We go through life like our right arm is gone. We go through the days remembering, always remembering the good times.

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” 

I remember that line when I read Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom. It was one of the best books I’ve ever come across. Emotional but inspirational as well.  And “once you learn how to die, you’ll learn how to live”. 

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Random Thoughts

What happened to me?

My mind is blank. Oh no, that’s a lie. It is actually full of thoughts at the moment.  Would you believe, I spent  a big part of the day reading news and watching videos about politics here. I feel like I am punishing myself listening to all those lies, reading unpalatable comments, watching a little of everything.  I had a good exchange of ideas with a former office mate who is now working in another bank. She calls me “ma’am” and I  told her she doesn’t have to.  Nasanay eh (she got used to it when we were together).

Finally, The Supreme Court made a decision on Sen. Trillanes’ filing a TRO and they didn’t approve it saying the words of Duterte and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) they would not arrest Sen. Trillanes without a warrant  would hold. They however referred it back to the Regional Trial Courts, one of which has set a hearing  on the 13th September.  Until now though, Sen. Trillanes is still at the Senate grounds and the AFP said they will still arrest him. Mad, mad world. I don’t understand  it. I am afraid Duterte  won’t honor his words. Instead of focusing on the more serious problems of the country, he’d rather engage in politicizing the AFP and  his attention is solely on Sen. Trillanes.  I pity our country, I pity its people. The poor  in our midst are hungry, they barely have enough to eat because of the rising prices of basically all commodities, add that to the very high cost of fuel and the low exchange rate of the Philippine peso to the US dollar. The boat is sinking, It’s sad.

I console myself by finishing two more books. Right, they are billionaire stories again. They are  quite easy read finishing a book in a day.  At the moment I am again listening to various artists, 70’s and 80’s music this time and a spattering of instrumental music by Percy Faith and Mantovani Orchestra. Music soothes  the soul, right?

There is a strong typhoon coming this week and another one has just left the country.  I hope it would not be that strong as predicted.  Although the eye of the typhoon would not possibly hit Metro Manila, I am still afraid of the rain that comes with it. Gosh, that would be our 15th weather disturbance this year.

I am distracted by this disco music. Bye for now.

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Saying Goodbye

You smile

But it does not reach your eyes

Are we thinking of the same thing?

I know,

the pain throbs and it makes you cry.

I wouldn’t say I know how it feels

losing a beloved  dad.

I was in the same boat years ago.

And I still remember the days

he was around.

We dream

We reminisce

We remember

The old days are gone

But deep within

We’ll treasure them and will turn back

To those moments

When  they were so near.

We could barely touch the wounds inside

But they remind us always,

Love would lead us there

Somehow.

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He Is A Big Boy Now

via He Is A Big Boy Now

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Sunday Blues

I just updated our Catholic page at Facebook when I came home from the 6:30 am mass in our Parish. I was thrilled to see these readings right on Nissa’s birthday come September 28. First reading is Ecclesiastes 3: 1-11.

1For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:2a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;3a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;4a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;5a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;6a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;7a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;8a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.9What gain has the worker from his toil?10I have seen the business that God has given to the sons of men to be busy with.11He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man’s mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

I always love the Ecclesiastes readings. It tells us about how life is, how we go on with it and how we should face all those adversities and challenges that go our way. Life is not perfect, we all know that but there is always time for everything. There is always time to enjoy life, time to laugh and time to cry.

Last night, I finished the last page of the book Under Rose-Tainted Skies by Louise  Gornall, a first-timer on my list of books.

One thing that first attracted me to it is not the summary but the photo cover. I haven’t read a YA book for so many months now, then came this. I love it.

Can you imagine yourself being afraid of public places and so particular about cleanliness and hygiene that your life is not  normal?

The book focuses on anxiety disorder, OCD and agoraphobia. They are mental health issues that none of us know about. Self inflicted wounds find its place in a teenager’s life. How could one empathize with a sickness that  you can’t see?

This is the first time I’ve read about agoraphobia.  I remember  a daughter of our neighbor who is bipolar. She has been in and out of the hospital some years ago. There were times when we just hear loud shouts from her. When she is in a good mood, you can talk to her about anything under the sun.

This book is not for everyone . I was curious what goes in someone’s mind if he or she has anxiety disorder. How does the family cope  with it? How do you deal with someone with OCD?

 

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It’s Mama Mary’s Birthday

In the Catholic calendar, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is always celebrated every September 8. The Blessed Mother occupies a unique place in the history of salvation.

There were years when I blogged about Mama  Mary’s birthday and my stats have gone up by the thousand. I loved  those times that readers appreciated my posts.  As I’ve always said,  as Catholics, we don’t worship Mama Mary but we venerate her. Veneration comes from the Latin word veneratio or dulia, Greek δουλεία, douleia. It is  the act of honoring a saint, a person who has been identified as having a high degree of sanctity or holiness. Since she is the mother of the Kings of kings, she is the saint of saints. We honor her by praying the rosary, observing her feasts in the Catholic calendar, or when we bow our heads while praying the creed.

Years ago, I made this meme from a photo I culled from the net using one of the apps I discovered earlier.

Happy Birthday MAMA MARY.

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Friendversaries

You’ve heard of it before more particularly with this app so popular on Facebook where they remind you of the date you’ve been friends with people in your contact list.

But what exactly is the term”friendversary?” It is a slang word which is a combination of friendship and anniversary. Just like what BFF means to some people, best friends forever.  It simply means friendship anniversary. I don’t really mind it when Facebook posts those reminders. I have been friends with some people in my contact list for so long even before Facebook was created.

For more than four decades now, I’ve been friends with three ladies whom I met at the UST Main Library. We were all  student librarians before and were assigned at the same section of the library  which was the Humanities. Thea is now a professed nun, a Franciscan working for the welfare of the Mangyans in Mindoro province. Precy is a successful businesswoman  while Grace migrated to Canada and married a Canadian. We don’t often see each other now but we still get in touch. Precy,  Thea and I are all cancer survivors.

What makes that friendship so special? Some say that the friendship you formed earlier in life is more enduring and more lasting. You have experienced things together during your younger years. You have shared a lot  and it doesn’t really matter that you don’t get to see one another as often as you want. There is that bond that you cannot just  erase.  That kind of friendship that when you see each other, it seems that nothing has changed, you pick up where you left before.  You have made them part of your family. You can grow separately without growing apart.

I always love these words from Henri Nouwen.  This is what real friendship means.

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

 

 

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The Sad Truth

Yesterday, amidst all those news about Sen. Trillanes, this came up on my news feed. We Filipinos know that inflation is rising since Duterte took office more than two years ago but this is an overwhelming and sad scenario. Why we have come to this, your guess is as good as mine. The ordinary Filipino is finding it hard to make both ends meet.

Imagine, we are the highest in the region. And that lowly poor’s man’s meal galunggong is now being imported. To think we are surrounded by hundreds of islands yet we import fish that came from our own shores. We are an agricultural country and we are importing rice too.  Back in the sixties and seventies, we were even teaching how rice should be successfully grown via the International Rice Research Institute.   Other Southeast Asian regions have benefited from research and technology but where are we now? Our poor farmers are still struggling.

Going back to this inflation rate, some people think  that the higher the percentage is, the more robust is our economy. I say, they don’t even read  and understand the news.

Sad Philippines.

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More “Two Cents”

In his brief message yesterday at the  Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem,  Duterte said:

“I could not imagine of a country obey an insane leader. And I could not ever fathom the spectacle of a human being going into a killing spree, murdering old men, women, men, children, mother”. 

He said further that  “despots and insane leaders “should be disposed of at the first instance. This was the same guy who said two years ago that he’d be happy to slaughter three million drug addicts just like what Hitler did  to the Jews.

Oh my, was he talking about himself? For this is what is happening now in our country.  His enemies in politics are  being persecuted one by one. First it was Sen. de Lima who was jailed  supposedly because of drugs, Chief Justice Sereno who was stripped of her post a few months ago. Then now comes Sen. Trillanes who is so vocal about Duterte’s doings and his failure to address the pressing problems of the country. Last  August 31, the latter issued an executive order revoking the amnesty granted to Sen. Trillanes by then Pres. Aquino back in 2011. Can the executive, without going through judicial proceedings,  declares the nullity of the Amnesty granted to Senator Trillanes just because documents in their own custody “cannot be found”? So if my birth certificate was lost  by the NSO, does that mean that I am not a Filipino citizen? If my marriage contract could not be found in their files, does that mean, I am not married?  What kind of logic is that? I say it is so rotten, BULOK. Or maybe Sen. Trillanes’ application for amnesty was deliberately misplaced so they’ll find a reason to arrest him.  Arrest now, check records later, is that it?

Thank you Geri Apostol for this photo.

He has no pending case in any court of the land. He was jailed before for seven years during La Gloria’s presidency because of staging a mutiny plot to oust the former. And now here comes a president who I think is very much afraid of Sen. Trillanes.  I watched all the interviews and happenings yesterday  at the Senate. Imagine arresting a civilian without warrant.  Sen. Trillanes resigned from being a soldier when he filed his candidacy as senator years ago. He actually won while he was in jail.  He is the only senator who filed the most bills  and most approved too.

It was timed. Does Duterte has to go out of the country before his executive order came  out?  Is this another kind of distraction from the more serious problems of the land? Rice with “bukbok”. importing “galunggong”  with formalin, dwindling dollar reserves and a very low exchange rate for the peso, eroding economy, billions  worth of shabu  drugs that entered the country, the unresolved 25,000 killings that are still ‘deaths under investigation”.  Gosh, in two years the Philippines looks pathetic when it used to be the rising tiger of Asia during Pres. Aquino’s reign.

Again I ask, where are we going Philippines?

 

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Reaching Out

Good morning everyone. I hope it is another happy day for all of you.

I’ve overhauled my blog slowly the past days. I noticed that there are some new bloggers who followed me and some are  reading my old posts which I have already forgotten. My mind says, “did I write all those?”And my thoughts wander and  wonder.  Yes, I did.  Some are quite emotional posts, some are a little inspirational, some are just thoughts and ramblings of the old me.

Blogging has come a long way. All these years, I’ve been sharing myself in cyberspace and I love it that I came to know a lot of people in the blogosphere and became friends with some of  them.  Although we don’t see each other and probably have no chance at all to see them personally, I feel a little closer because they share their lives and stories too.

We love stories, don’t we? We love it when  we have similar aspirations and dreams in life. Short of saying, “You too?”, it is really wonderful.  I love seeing your photos, pictures of your family,  places you go to and you’ve been to, your garden blooms, your  daily routines and what have you.

We may have different cultures but everything merges here in one community of bloggers.

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