My Last Difficult Goodbye

So I am trying another Jetpack app this morning. In a few days, WordPress would have another algorithm. Good thing I already installed it on my tab.

They were asking what was my last difficult goodbye. It was when I lost my younger brother Alden last May 15, 2022 due to colo-rectal cancer, the same ailment that my oldest brother had back in 2003 and mine was colon cancer last July 2009. My oldest brother and I had gone through chemotherapy sessions, me with oral chemo tablets too and my brother with radiation treatment. Both of us underwent sigmoid surgery before chemotherapy while Alden chose an alternative cure and he was given three more years after being diagnosed. He was worried about the additional financial burden to the whole family. We regularly sent them financial help back then.

It was one Friday afternoon May of last year that Nissa and I went home to visit him. The day before that, no hospital in our place would accept him. When he reached home, he could no longer stand and had to be fed by his wife. We reached Pangasinan around 9pm and their driver, a cousin of ours fetched us at the bus station. My heart bled for him when I saw how he was, no longer talking but just nodding his head as I whispered in his ears. Sunday morning, that was May 15, Almeda, his wife woke me up and told me that Alden felt so cold. They called an ambulance but we talked about it. I thought it was a useless exercise bringing him to the hospital again. Some of our relatives came over to visit him. Nissa spent the longest time talking to him that Sunday morning we were due to go back to Manila. We were somewhere in NLEX when I received a text from my oldest brother that Alden is gone. I felt that was the longest trip we had.

It is so sad to lose a family member. The sadness could not be quantified and the sense of emptiness is greatly felt. That Sunday morning when we left for Manila was the most difficult goodbye. Memories with Alden will always be treasured.

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Then And Now

Look back with gratitude so you can look ahead with hope.

Do you remember those days when you were just a wee child and you looked at your grandparents as really, really old? You were excited to reach your teens so you could go out with your friends.

Childhood brings that smile to my face as I remember – the patintero games, luksong-tinik, playing with marbles, accumulating rubber bands and those 2 x3 text cards that I used to play with my brothers and cousins. They were nicely kept in a shoe box covered with Christmas wrapper. Back in those days, we had an area in our place where we could get red clays during the rainy season and mould them into several figures.

Our old house had what you call barandella. They are window railings. My two brothers and I would dangle our feet on each window while we made those figures like airplanes, small houses, birds and what have you out of the clay we got from the field. I used to make plates, clay pots, vases with big flowers that I could mould with my little hands.

Then one grew up, planned to have one’s own family, have pretty kids that one wished would turn out smart too. Married was a big challenge. The ex-hubby and my two kids were not together for almost twenty years except for two months vacation every two years because he worked abroad. When he came home for good, he didn’t know how to have his family by his side. You know the word called padre de familia and his words were law that the kids should not cross. It was hard for us to adjust with him around. A few months after Nissa got married, whew, he left us for good. Our life is quiet now, we have learned to adjust without his presence.

My gosh, I was counting every birthday that passed and I am grateful of lessons learned, blessings bestowed on the family and small miracles that make our lives now happy and secure. We have Nate, Nissa has just been promoted to Senior Manager at the bank where I used to work, Josef is enjoying his work at JP Morgan Chase bank. He reports to the office thrice a week and works from home for two days.

I am now 66, with those seemingly ever-present health concerns. I am still hopeful of the future though. A nun friend who is a cancer survivor like me has this to say: When you feel so much alone, that’s the time God is holding your hands. When you are at the lowest ebb of your life, you are closest to Him the most.

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Missing You…Still

Remembering my brother Alden whose birthday falls today. Had he been alive, he could have been 62.

Missing you still brother dear. Thanks for the memories. I feel like crying again.

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It’s His 15th Year

Yes, we lost dad on this same day fifteen years ago and I try to write about him every year on his birthday and death anniversary. Memories kept, memories treasured.

We were still in grade school in the province when dad took his yearly Christmas break and he would join us for our simple Noche Buena and Media Noche. There used to be a cooperative inside the university where he worked and every December, the administration give the employees’ share of the earnings of the coop. Coupons were exchanged for groceries and other necessities that the employees could buy. We’ll always look forward to Dad’s Christmas vacation armed with various groceries – canned goods, quezo de bola, Granny Smith apples and sometimes school supplies. Us kids were not used to eating quezo de bola so it usually stays in the basket for a month. Mom’s cousin, our teacher in grade school liked it a lot. Before, hams come in tins unlike now where they cook it fresh.

Every year, there was this fund drive by students of UST High School department where they gather used clothing and give them to the employees when December comes. Dad would bring home a big box of assorted clothes and Mom would distribute them to our neighbors and some relatives. Mom would choose around five then she would alter them for me. She was good at sewing. We had an old Singer machine which is still in the province. Some of my classmates in grade school thought we bought a lot of dresses every December for me but they were just overhauled second hand clothes that Dad used to bring home.

Dad was fond of having his white hair removed, 5 cents for each. I had a piggy bank where I would keep my earnings back then.

Those days that made life wonderful and happy. I miss him…stiĺl. Maybe he is looking down on us with that smiling face. Praying for you dad🙏🙏🙏❤️❤️❤️😘🥰😍

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Somewhere In Time

You’d think it is a review of the movie, right? Wrong. I just borrowed the title.

I saw this picture of a little girl walking with her old grandma and I suddenly thought of my grandparents. I grew up not knowing nor even seeing my paternal grandmother. She died when her youngest son was born (the seventh child- six brothers and a sister). What was sad about it my uncle Domie who is now around eighty-two years old was born with speech defect. He is the only one we call uncle and the rest of them we call Tatay. Tatay means father in the vernacular. I don’t know what happened, uncle Domie never attended school but he knows how to count, he knows the faces of our local money. His nieces including me are all called Bea (pronounced as Be)by him.

Most of my Dad’s brothers and only sister told me that I was a look-alike of my paternal grandmother, my height, the way I walk, the way I speak and the way I carry myself among relatives and friends. I wished I have known her.My older brother and I together with three cousins grew up under the care of my maternal grandmother. Mom was always with Dad when he was working here in Metro Manila until my eldest brother and I reached high school and we were all transferred here. My youngest brother spent his grade school years in a nearby public school when we lived in Quezon City. The four of us spent our high school years at the University of Santo Tomas, two of us graduated there in college.

Speaking of my baing (vernacular for grandma), she was quite strict with us but we grew up knowing how to pray the rosary every six o-clock in the evening. There was even a part there spoken in Latin but I already forgot all about it. I wrote in one earlier post here that I learned weaving mats through her. I learned a lot about life during the Second World War through her stories. That probably influenced me why I like reading about anything historical now.

Funny how sometimes, just a mere picture would trigger memories. Sometimes, you long for those days of old. You smile at the thought and you reminisce.

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Memories

This photo popped up on  Facebook’s Memories  this morning and I am reminded  of the time I took shot of it more than nine years ago when I was just starting taking macro shots with my camera.

This picture is actually green moss clinging to our perimeter wall behind the house and that mountain-like structure you see is our concrete fence. I’ve always love experimenting on water droplets, capturing those tiny jewels on cam before they reach the ground. A minute here, a few seconds there. It’s divine!

One of my friends who is a professional photographer said he liked the composition because it was beyond ordinary and those water droplets turned out like tiny flowers. It just happened. I remember blogging about this when likes and comments at WordPress were not yet that so common.

It’s one of my favorite shots. When one is lucky enough to find a nice subject 🙂

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Good Old Memories

If you’re on Facebook,  you’re probably familiar with their Memories app where you get to see  every day some of your posts and shoutouts from previous years. I love reminiscing about those somehow forgotten moments until they stare at you in the face….then you remember.

I can’t recall if  I wrote this previously here back in October 2015 or if  I wrote it originally at Facebook.  Anyway, I am sharing it here (maybe for the second time around). Senior moments and can’t really recall when I wrote it exactly. I told you, out of the thousands of posts I’ve written, I can no longer remember the others.  There was a time when I used to write all  the titles of my posts in my journal  but when I reached around 600, I got tired of it ands never came back to update it. By the way, I just changed the opening line from six years to ten years.

TEN YEARS. A long time to share one’s thoughts in cyberspace. I never thought that I will last this long in the blogging world. It gets more addicting when you find new friends who really and sincerely admire your posts and read everything down to the misplaced comma or misspelled word. Maybe if I would collate all these from the first few lines I wrote when I started, I’ll have a thick book by now. Scattered thoughts, broken dreams, unfulfilled promises, disappointments, happy and delirious moments that I just have to write about because seeing them in print (even just in this platform) is the only way I know how. Somehow when you feel so alone in a crowd, you turn to something that would make your world a little brighter even just for a few moments.

The good thing about writing your thoughts (but not necessarily sharing them to the world) is that you learn to cope with the dark days and see the promise of a new day. The sun always rises even if there is a storm but you don’t always see it. You look back and sometimes you wonder, did you really think that it would make a big difference to the world or make a dent in yours? I must admit, there is that kind of self-fulfillment when you write no matter how mundane or unimaginative your thoughts are.

 

 

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Memories Daw O.

It was one of those things that you sometimes enjoy while browsing at Facebook. There is this site called en.nametest.com  which somehow has become a favorite of  some of my friends at Facebook. I tried it but instead of posting the result at Facebook, I copied the pictures. It asked something like “what are your outstanding moments?” The result was based on the Facebook photos of course. It’s kind of weird sometimes that you get to see photos aside from where they were published.

And  it  includes  my solo pic at Caleruega, Nate’s grad pic in Nursery. Pope Francis pic during his visit to UST,  Nissa and me at a wedding of my niece, my first ID picture when I reached 60 and had it in readiness for other issued IDs.  This is only the second time I tried this site. My Facebook wall is for friends only but one can’t really avoid seeing those pics in other sites or on Google. Once you post something in cyberspace, it becomes public.

I tried checking my name through Google and most of those photos that I posted  here at WordPress are also there.  When you are using social media, expect something like this. It is the downside of this technology called the internet. One thing I like though is I don’t need  to have our photos printed, I just copy them to my hard drive and may be print some when needed.

(Oops, by the way the Tagalog word “daw”  in the title simply means “it is said” or something to that effect).

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Turning 61

I know, I know. I should be writing  about how my day went yesterday celebrating my 61st birthday.  I went out for a while to see our street all aglow with  red  Christmas lights in each electric post in front of each house.  I just love it. This is what Santa says:

Right now, there are 57 days until Christmas 2017

And yes, I am quite distracted by the songs playing on Josef’s Bose SoundLink  Mini. It’s a Bluetooth speaker  which was Nissa’s gift to him last Christmas.   It’s the sound of the  70’s this time. I don’t know why but I was looking for another song by Frank Sinatra called  Something Stupid  and he has it too. Oh, what a thrill!  Jumping with joy listening to well-selected songs he downloaded on his phone the past few days.

Let’s see, Josef went on vacation leave yesterday so we could celebrate my birthday. We were out the whole day. Nissa brought Nate to their office to have  a Halloween party so we had lunch together at Tokyo Tonteki  in Greenbelt 5, Makati. Yes, it’s Japanese cuisine and I simply loved it. Then we went to BGC (Bonifacio Global City) to shop for a while. I’m impressed with their  JP Morgan office, it’s so tall and so big. I watched their ad at the ground floor lobby featuring the services of JP Morgan Chase Bank worldwide.  Next before we went home, we had dinner at SM East Ortigas mall. That completes the day for me. Food and more food.  I had fun reading all the greetings on Facebook.  Six of my priest friends also sent their greetings and one offered his mass intention for me. These photos stand out:

A photo collage from a friend who greeted me “Happy New  Year”.

Taken yesterday at Tokyo Tonteki.

 

 

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Crazy Cancer

Gosh, I lost another friend.

This is a sad day. Early this morning I learned of the devastating news that another friend is gone. I met her online through Multiply seven years ago. It was one of those online meetings through common friends. She wrote poetry and migrated to the US more than three years ago. In between exchanging news and comments later at Facebook, we finally met personally together with her two grandchildren. It was a lovely  meeting, talking about  family, friends, social media and books.  Met her again when she was completing her requirements for an interview at the US Embassy about six or five years ago. I gave her a rosary and she gave me a set of Hallmark stationery and several gardening mags.  She found out she had cancer  when she was already in the US.

Time is a thief.

I thought she was doing okay already but she died last night. We planned of meeting again  when she comes home but death claimed her. She published a book of poems and she said she will give me a copy. So sad really that I won’t be able to see her again. She lives on through her words. She had a WordPress blog but never updated it after a few entries.

Rest in peace Ding. Keeping you in my prayers.

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