It’s Friday, Praying For Edsa Celebration This Saturday

It ‘s First Friday of Lent.

A friend who is based in Canada is now active exchanging news with me through Messenger. She lost her husband a few months ago and had a knee operation earlier than that. Grace is another friend for fifty years. Back in college, we used to write each other almost every day using date due slips of the UST Main Library, Humanities Section. She is like an older sister to me. Instead of going out to enjoy ourselves, we’re both regular visitors of hospitals for medical appointments. She said, these are the signs of getting old. She’s older by three years.

Early this morning I went to the Medical City clinic to have some lab tests then I’ll go back on Tuesday to get the results and consult with my internist. Not a month passes that I don’t get to visit the clinic. Two days after my ENT told me to go back for check-up after a month, my ear began to ache, it was tolerable but uncomfortable. For three days I had my ear drops but I stopped this morning. Hopefully, it won’t hurt again until my next check-up with her.

It’s a holiday here today, a rapid declaration supposedly to celebration People Power 1986 when the Marcos family fled to Hawaii carrying so much cash and jewelry with them. I told you before about the three private ITs who were concerned about the “unusual” result of the May 2022 election where it was obviously rigged. After submitting the mandamus to the Supreme Court, the SC finally ordered the Commission On Election to explain it. The People Revolution in 1986 is celebrated every 25th of February where the organizers now in different sectors will be joining the street protests at EDSA tomorrow. The government might have thought that a three-day off work might result to the people to ignore Saturday’s event and go somewhere else instead. Nervous? Haha, they just gave time for the people to prepare for tomorrow.

Marcos, Jr. is trying to cleanse their names from history but we Filipinos who are still alive now are witnesses to what happened before. My goodness, I think with those junkets abroad, he is trying to bring respect from the other countries and to help the Philippine economy through investments. Is anyone biting? He is the most travelled president during his eight months in office. And not only that, he brings with him his family and gargantuan members of his cabinet including close friends. Around the world in eight months. And they are using the people’s hard-earned tax money. Wala silang kahihiyan.

Praying for tomorrow’s event. I hope people would finally wake up from their blind obedience to the one in power.

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Friday Thoughts

Yeay, it’s another weekend. February is running fast.

I’ve been remissed in my blogging updates again. I talked to several friends yesterday through Messenger. I met Maria Luisa several months ago when Sambuhay Interaktib started last year. She is living in Australia with her family. She took these photos of us while we were talking. We touched on so many subjects especially our families and the political situation here in our country.

It was so really nice to catch up with friends online.

Today is my adopted son’s birthday (anak-anakan in Tagalog). Fr. Lovell is still assigned in Iloilo and he does not go online often so we rely on texts which is easier.

Got this photo from their Dominican site. A former classmate in high school saw it and asked me to ask Fr. Lovell if he knows the parents of her son’s in-laws who she thinks are neighbors with Fr. Lovell’s family. The latter confirmed that they are close friends. What a small world!

By the way, I’m done with my 21st book for this year’s Goodreads challenge. Discovering new books and gifted authors in the process.

Have a happy and fruitful weekend.

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So Blessed

Just received a package a while ago from my Franciscan friend Sr. Thea who stayed in the Holy Land for three months. She sent me all these – key chains from Assisi, France and the Holy Land and also a Divine zeal key chain from Myanmar.

I love the rosary best. She said it is blessed by touching the big rock on which Jesus prayed in Gethsemane. The center medal at the back of the image of the Blessed Mother is soil from the Holy Land.

Don’t ask me how I was able to post this photo. It was just by trial and error. I took it using my tab’s camera.

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Forty-Six Years And Counting

Yes, it’s been almost forty- six years. We met for the first time back in 1973 when I reported to work as student librarian at the University of Santo Tomas. We both worked at the university library until I was in my third year as Economics major and she finished her Library Science degree.

The friendship has come to a point when we would write each other daily on date due slips of the library.  She was Nissa’s godmother during her baptism and again one of the principal sponsors during Nissa’s wedding. She migrated to Canada sometime in 2001.

The last time we saw each other was almost eight years ago until yesterday. A happy reunion between friends, a lovely tête-à-tête updating each other on what’s happening in our lives, non-stop smiles and laughter. Her husband showed me their photos when they were in Japan before coming to Manila a week ago.

And a happy reunion would not be complete without some photos, right? Although Mark took photos of Grace and me, I had a couple of shots in my phone taken by one employee of the hotel where they stayed.

Mark, Grace and I

She gave me two books, a copy of Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain and a trade paperback of Maya  Angelou’s The Heart of A Woman. We developed our love for books when we were both assigned at the Humanities Section of the UST Main Library. Can’t wait to read these two.

Friendship is a lovely thing. When you find true friends, being apart for so many years doesn’t really matter. It feels as if you’ve seen each other only yesterday.

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Friendship Blooms

It started with their liking our Catholic page on Facebook back in 2010.  The following year, we had our first gathering, our first time to see each other personally. It was a lovely affair exchanging thoughts and ideas, participating  in group games and eating lunch together.  There were other events that we attended together and most of the time, they come to the house to visit me.

The smiles would always be there, the “kuwentuhans” would always  be hilarious affairs. The laughter is a given thing when we are together.

 

Their favorite activity is picking kalamansi (Philippine lime) from the two trees we have at the garden. Yesterday, they got more than a kilo of kalamansi. Reymon made a glass of freshly squeezed kalamansi juice.

 

Next week would be Apol’s 48th birthday so we celebrated it early by having that small Chocolate Rainbow cake and Mango Dark Chocolate ice cream from Red Ribbon.  She’s the one in the orange  t-shirt.

Though it was only the four of us, we had a blast. Apol is presently undergoing treatment for lupus. I admire the way she handles everything, still jolly and happy despite it all. Lupus is a chronic, complex and prevalent autoimmune  disease that attacks healthy tissues of the body. It is a progressive  disease.

What makes friendship? How does it bloom? It’s that being yourself with people who have similar ideals and beliefs  like you. It’s having those moments of laughter and tears and yet you don’t judge each other.  It’s celebrating those little triumphs and successes in life, being there for each other in times of trials.  As they say, it’s looking together in the same direction.

Reymon calls me Mommy, Lilet is easy with calling me tita  while Apol who is twelve years younger than I am calls me ate. Being together, enjoying those precious moments, celebrating the beauty of friendship. What more could I ask for?

 

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