It’s Holy Tuesday

We are on the second day of Holy Week. Busy with attending short recollections online before the Paschal Triduum begins on the night of Holy Thursday and ends on Easter Sunday night.

Holy Week is one of the most important event in the Catholic calendar.The most important feast day by far is the Feast of Pascha (Easter) – the Feast of Feasts. Then the Twelve Great Feasts, which commemorate various significant events in the lives of Jesus Christ and of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary).

Fr. Pao sent me his schedule starting tomorrow – they have the Stations of the Cross, recollection and the Seven Last Words on Friday.

My regret though is not being able to read your posts and commenting too. Monday next week, I won’t be busy anymore. Then I’ll have those backreads on your posts.

Nissa is doing well. Thank you so much for all your prayers and good thoughts for her. She received some gifts from friends. What caught my attention was this small crate of different fruits from three of her high school friends. Love that green avocado on top.

Kiwis, oranges and apples are usually imported but those fresh strawberries usually come from Baguio. Fruits are important when you had Covid.

I miss Nate. I miss those moments when we would play in the garden and pick kalamansi. I wonder when I’ll be able to see them again.

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They’re Going Home

Obet and Nate are going home this afternoon. Sad.

Nissa is going home tomorrow. She is now negative based on rapid antigen test. She still coughs once in a while but it is now manageable.For the past days, I’ve grown used to Nate waking up early so he could attend his online classes. Nissa sometimes supervises his assignments. It is nice having him around here.Yesterday, he asked me about taking his pictures everyday. I told him I am taking advantage of his presence. Here’s one where he was showing that signature smile.

After dinner last night he showed me how he whistles. There is a cartoon in his tab where he imitates the song.

We’ve been having a spike of people positive of Covid-19. It is scary.

I wish our LGUs would start rolling out the vaccines, they say that senior citizens are next in line. Here in our town, they are almost done vaccinating the frontliners.

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Having Nate Around

Quite busy. I haven’t written a blog for a week now…I have lots to share.

Obet and Nate fondly call each other Bro. I always smile every time I hear them say Bro to each other. For so many years now, I have forgotten how it is to have a kid at home. It makes me remember those days with Nissa and Josef when they were growing up – the stories about school, what they did for the day, the daily notes/letters posted at our bedroom door when I got home from work.

Reliving those priceless moments now – with Nate. This morning, he made a three-slice sandwich with our malunggay loaf bread putting luncheon meat, fried egg and Cheez Whiz on each layer. With a glass of milk, he said it was a yummy breakfast.

Two days ago, I cooked kangkong in Oyster sauce, Nate liked it preferring it over the beef tapa we had for dinner. The simple joys of a child and the enormous happiness of
Nonna with Nate around🥰❤🏃‍♂️

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She Is So Kind

Covid changed the world and it is also changing the outlook of each and everyone of us.

Nissa is doing well except for a little back pain and her arms ache too, otherwise she is good.

Nate and Obet are temporarily here with us. They had another swab tests the other day and it came out yesterday. It was negative, thank God. We decided to let them stay here for a while meantime that Nissa is in the hospital. In between classes, Nate is a typical eight-year-old playing with a toy gun. First time I saw him participate in an online class. Our dining table is his temporary study area.

Nate is fond of creating whistle tunes. I asked how he does it. “Watch me Nonna” he said and shaped his mouth and whistled. I just laughed. Life is crazy when Nate is here.

I commented on Vice-Pres. Leni Robredo’s post on Covid. I was surprised when she answered and there were so many of her fans who commented too. I took a screen shot earlier.

There are now a hundred likes on what I wrote and more than 80 likes on VP Leni’s answer. More comments are coming in telling me that they are praying formy daughter. I am so touched. A collective prayer is powerful, right?

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Sa Ugoy Ng Duyan

Yesterday,Nate was having a lesson in Music online. Obet was besides him. The latter noticed that Nate’s eyes were red but when it was his turn to sing, he composed himself and smiled at his teacher. Sa Ugoy ng Duyan is a story of a child reminiscing her/his days with her/his mom. It simply means “at the swing of the hammock”. When the song was about to end, Nate’s voice cracked.

He excused himself and told the teacher that he was going to the comfort room, but he went to their room instead and locked the door. A few minutes later, Obet knocked and he saw several tissues besides Nate.

“I poked my eyes Daddy”, he said. Obet knew he was crying. He didn’t say a word and gathered Nate in his arms.

While Nissa was relating the story, I found myself teary-eyed. Nate misses his mommy.

Obet told Nissa that at his age, Nate is strong just like her. I wish I were there with Nate so I could embrace him.

And if I may say, for the first time yesterday, he didn’t request for a video chat with me. He just told me, “Mom is sick”.

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So It’s Just Covid?

It’s just funny and so inferiorating that the crazy old man thought of contract tracing and providing free face masks a year after lockdown. It’s been a year of almost 13,000 deaths, a year of letting the police force take charge of protocols instead of appointing medical people. Here’s a summary of how Covid has affected us a year after lockdown.

This was published the other day. We’re back to square one, we don’t even have vaccines yet except for those donations by WHO and the old man’s best friend china. The people are wary of that vaccine Sinovac. There is a sudden surge the past five days. And they have the nerve to say, they’re excellently handling it.

The other day, I asked all of you if you could include Nissa in your prayers. She is in the hospital now.

His brother-in-law got infected last week so the people in-charge of Covid patients in their place picked him up and brought him to a quarantine facility in Manila. Obet’s father’s sister who is a doctor told them to undergo swab tests including Nate and their househelp. They had it last Sunday. When I woke up last Monday morning, I received a message from Nissa that she is positive of Covid. They decided to have her admitted at the hospital where Dr. Isidro, their aunt is affiliated so she could be well taken cared of and to isolate herself too.

They suspected pneumonia when her x-ray was released. She’s now on antibiotics. She has a little cold but she had no fever, thank God for that. Grab Food delivered fruits and her other needs to the hospital yesterday which Obet hired since he is not allowed to go there. These service deliveries are only allowed up to the gate of the hospital.

You can only feel the impact of this virus when one family member is affected. It is a stressful situation. Obet called me up when he arrived home Monday night. He was crying. One thing that touched me was when he said that he was grateful to the way I brought up Nissa. According to him, she was so strong and so calm. I’ll tell you about Nate next post.

I talk to her and message her every few hours and she is okay. Please continue praying for her. My priest friends included her in their daily masses.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PRAYERS🙏🙏🙏.

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Prayer Request

Kindly please INCLUDE NISSA IN YOUR PRAYERS. She is positive of Covid-19.

Thanks a lot friends.

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500 Years

We are celebrating 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines.

It was a very touching and inspiring celebration led by the Holy Father Pope Francis in Rome. I actually shed a tear when the Filipino community sang the Lord’s Prayer, Our Father in Tagalog. Our very own Cardinal Chito read his words of thanks in behalf of Filipinos here and abroad. Here are some photos, highlights of the homily of Pope Francis for the celebration of 500 Years of Christianity here in our country.

Credits to EWTN VATICAN for the photos and the Servant’s Chronicles for uploading them.

Last night I attended an online recollection at the Manila Cathedral,very uplifting words from Fr. Regie and Fr. Kali. I watch their masses every day. Different versions of the theme song were rendered by some Filipinos abroad.

To Your Mission LORD, we give our yes.

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13th Year

Hello guys. Good morning.

Yesterday, I received a congratulatory message from WordPress. Thirteen years ago, I opened an account here upon the recommendation of a friend from Multiply.

I tried creating one of course but all I posted was a pathetic single poem from my journal. It took me more than a year to come back and learned how to customize it. I chose a free theme and I am still using one until now. It would take maybe a year or two more to utilize it fully.

I started actually posting and transferring some posts from Friendster and Multiply back in May 2009, a few days after I learned that I had to undergo the inevitable sigmoidoscopy. Back then, the result of my colonoscopy was not good. To cut the story short, my surgical oncologist removed about nine inches of my colon. I started chemo a month after, six sessions of pain and distress for almost half a year.

I have to look for something that would occupy my empty days aside from reading. I have to give up gardening for almost a year. So I thought of visiting my account at WordPress and learn everything from there.

Do you remember how you started? I got a measly ten visits and two followers almost a month after. It was only when I braved myself to join WordPress’ Post A Day Challenge that my blog was noticed by a few. That was ten years ago and the rest is history now.

I gained new online friends, fellow bloggers who were just starting too. Some of them I still follow until now and they had followed me back. Some got lost in cyberspace, stopped blogging and even deleted their accounts.

I don’t really know why some people follow you but you can’t even hear from them. No likes, no comments, no whatsoever. Some of course expect that you follow them back. It’s not an automatic response from me.

If I have to count those active bloggers who I exchange ideas and comments with, fifty would be a lucky number. One thing though, I found true friends here, learned a lot from their posts, admired the photos they shared, admired the reviews of books they have read and I was inspired by their posts on different subjects. Travelling without leaving your corner, seeing a slice of the world we live in.

So it’s my 13th year. I congratulate myself that I reached this far.

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Almost In The Middle Of March

AND it’s been a week since I wrote anything here. When you start not writing everyday, sometimes you just get lazy even visiting your blog. And it holds true for me. Did I miss blogging? I did of course but not as much as before. I think I have exhausted every subject that I could think of blogging about.

IF I were to collate all the blog entries I wrote on my five existing blogs, it would probably reach more than 4,000 posts. I seldom get to update the other four, my blog about Nate’s growing up years, my photo blog, blog about my garden and another one I started three years ago just in case I get to use up my remaining free usage. Yes, I am still on the free format.

MAYBE, I need to take a break for a while and blog again when I find a nice subject to blog about.

I am on my 36th book at Goodreads’ 2021 reading challenge. Talk about ghosts and hauntings, that’s what I am reading now. We’ll be celebrating 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines and Pope Francis will celebrate a mass intended for the Philippine Catholic Church.

May your weekdays be blessed and fruitful.

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