my canvas - my paint - my life

seemingly overnight, the leaves have changed. a few have fallen on the crisp and still green grass, yet most cling to the branches, almost as if unwilling to let go until  they have reached the deepest reds or golds that they know they can become.  the air seems cleaner too. and the sun, almost muted and hazy. as if it too is defying the seasons changing.  i hear the occasional blue jay  sing, although i do not see it anymore.  the once languid winds, now seem renewed as it  cheerily blows against  the shutters. beyond the  maple trees that line the roads,  some leaves have turned golden now…creating a silhoutte of earthy hues. 

it never fails to amaze me, the apparent burst of heavenly beauty  that wraps this side of my world , just weeks before the first snow flakes fall.  the almost picturesque sight that clings to my soul, almost as if to remind me of a wealthy promise, lest i forget once my world is blanketted once more with the stark whiteness of the snows.  the autumn, almost human in its quest to never be forgotten. exhausting every  golds and  rusts in its capacity, to remind  that the  arctic cold is only temporary … that in its wake– spring!

i am equally enthralled by the lessons autumn brings…that in this life, no matter the darkness that sporadically engulfs us, in the end, life always takes over. things that have been lost are almost always found, sadness fades, and in its place -  a renewed sense of new beginnings.  and as certain as the seasons change,  so is hope. because in the end, nothing is too stark that cannot be awashed, nothing is too empty that cannot be filled…

and so i take in the  absolute perfection before me,  drink in the crispness of the airs and  enwrap myself  in the rustic colors … mindful of the coming winter,  yet unthreatened  and almost hopeful …not of the onslaught of the cold ice that looms across the horizon, but of the promise that autumn brings…

i stare at his frayed photograph.  confronting the almost  accusing eyes. i hasten to hold the absent stare, afraid almost to look away. i feel pulled yet again into the stark  and cold  void .  and for a short second, i attempt to stifle the tears.  i cringe, yet i know there is no escaping.  so once again, i am devoured…

like the rush of a raging river or the bursting of a dam,  i  surrender once more to  the pain.  surprisingly, i welcome it like a very old friend. i am almost relieved to feel  tortured once more…a refreshing change from these months of numbness and emptiness.  i  am speechless… welcoming the stabbing hurts. i let it engulf my entire being.

and as tears pour,  i acknowledge  the simplest truth:  i have been forever changed.

his death has killed  a very essential part of  my being.  the life i once knew and cherished shall never be again. like the burning of a bridge, or the passing of my young years…

i cry not only for the brother i lost, but for the eternal  damage this loss has burdened my soul with.

these tears i shed refuse to cleanse me even. they are pure and raw…cruelly unassuming. yet honest. i see no end in sight. i know only that they have become my second skin …

 i dont fight it anymore. 

tattered skin and fragile bones,her hair so thin she was almost bald. eyes wide open through dry cracking lids, her skin so pale and bruised. her twig-like fingers almost skeletal, nails bitten almost to the skin. her belly, so enlarged — almost monstrous. her insides now transparent through wrinkled onion skins. too weak, she could barely lift her head as i gently slipped the hospital pillow beneath her neck. she was trembling, as if she couldn’t get warm enough beneath her thick blanket, yet sweat dripped down her forehead, as if it took all her strength to simply blink an eye.

she reached out for me, and in that instant i knew — she was going to touch my life like so many did ahead of her that has gone on from this world…

my sweet lillian—so pained …so unfortunate. her life once full and exciting, now reduced to this shivering skeletal being who can only pray for just one minute more in this world…just one more minute to hold on to a life she once cherished…

i could not look her in her eyes — too afraid of confronting her grief, too afraid of being drawn into yet another futile encounter with another soul that was soon to perish. but my sweet little lillian was persistent, like she always was, i was told, in her old life. and so as she held out her stick-like fingers, i relented.

and what i saw in her eyes shook me through my very core!

naked fear…raw pains…pleading soul…yet faith, not for a cure, but for comfort…

reduced to this quivering mass of pained flesh, all she really expected was to be held. as if to be comforted was to remind her of her very own humanity.

i cried openly, unashamed and unafraid of showing her my very own pains. i wanted her to know, she was not alone. i gently stroked her cheeks, now also drenched in her own tears. we held– unaware now of our own personal pain, just breathing in the other’s suffering. in this warm instant, i felt liberated of my fears, if only for a second…intently focused only on hers.  there was no need for words for either of us.  somehow through both our tears, our souls understood each other. in her impending death, we both saw clearly. this was how it was meant to be.  for her to die comforted by another human touch, for me .. another  time to re-visit mother’s death through another’s. i could not be with my mother on the hour of her death, but i was with another soul yet again —who, otherwise would have died alone this night…

as i gently laid her hand down across her chest, she whispered a prayer,  and unceremoniously sighed her very last breath…

i closed my eyes…and prayed…

god rest your soul, my sweet little lillian

“you have gone quite far. your yesterdays, a distant memory. some friends still remain, but most have gone on to make lives for their own. it hasnt been easy, either. you have learned that much as you labor to keep your world constant, you always stand to lose some precious gifts along the way to make way for better things to come into your life. the wiser ones learn to accept these changes while most of us still struggle for understanding.  on some really quiet days, when your  mind is not as muddled as it always is, you smile in remembrance for all that has transpired. and yes, when you remember the friends you have lost, either by distance or through conflict, your heart is still infused with that familiar warmth. there is a longing to re-visit the days long gone, even though sometimes remembering brings forth old hurts.

some pains have faded well into nothingness, but some linger, not because you have a wish to correct past mistakes, but because you realize the futility of wanting to do so. you cry  for the things that you wish  ended differently. but mostly your tears are for those that you have irrevocably lost.  for those that you wish you had kept, for those that you wish you had shared your life with, even to this day.

as much as you have been changed by time,  it is undeniable though that you are where you are now because you were touched by these old friends. the significant few that you continue to cry for, even as they are unmistakably now absent from your life, in reality still are with you, if only for the lessons learned from their loss.

your journey continues on. in fact, you will continue to accept new friends into your life, and will continue to lose some along the way as well. but you are wiser now than you ever were. you know enough to treasure these gifts, no matter how brief or lasting the encounters are. because now, you have your enriched past to guide you on. for as long as you cherish your very own history, your tomorrows will always be  a gift to look forward to. “

everything happens for a cosmic reason.

somewhere amidst the insanity of my world, it is neither sweet nor excruciating to consider that my whole life is actually one big rehearsed play. if you think about the concept long enough, though, doesnt it begin to actually HURT?  consider your life, and think about all the challenges you thought you won…then think: you had absolutely nothing to do with it. it was going to happen because it was going to happen.

imagine the time you lost your first love? remember the pain? can you almost smell the despair all over again? now, think this: IT HAD TO HAPPEN! just because it had to. for some larger than your life reason, somewhere in this world, someone benefitted from your loss. someone more needy than you….or worse, someone more deserving of him than you ever were.

still, you remain bereft of that loss. still, every night you think of him and wonder where it would have led had you and him made it. the pain never left, now did it?

so, only for that left-over pain, what could be the cosmic reason for that? were you meant to live the remainder of your life trapped in this lingering pain?  were you meant to suffer this only so you can masochistically go over the loss over and over again?

or, because you were meant to live a better life without him, could you maybe have been saved from a painful life of a different category? the curse that you think it was when you lost him, could it maybe have been a blessing ?

so then, you wonder on….and before you catch yourself, you are actually back to where you started…and so begins a crucial cycle.

…but if you sit on this long enough, and allow your mind to accept the enormity of LIFE, doesnt it begin to make sense? if only just a little?

because as much as we over-emphasize the value of our own little existence amidst the whole entire universe, we are still only a speck of a little dot, insignificant …until we connect with another insignificant dot…who will connect with yet another insignificant dot…and so on…

only until we have made significant links with each others do our lives really matter. it is only therefore natural to assume that our connections with each one will create compromises …to allow others’ lives to prosper as much as yours will….

the rule is simple, you lose so someone else can win.

and on a deeper level, somehow, to me that is very reassuring. it is a very considerate concept,in a very spiritual sense.

because much as it emphasizes the insignificance of me, it also, in the very same breath, exhalts the significance i have on others.  on a bigger scale, it is such a blessed thought to know that i exist because i have and will make a difference in some others’ lives.  and on a much more morbid sense, someday when i die, someone will stand to benefit even from that….

and so as i mull these thoughts over and over in my mind, i am almost stunned to realize that much as i think i have nothing to do with everything that has and will happen in my life, i can only focus on the end result…and the end looks …peaceful.  the end looks like someone other than my insignificant self is in control of this world. someone wiser and more selfless than i could ever be….and if only for that, i can rest easy….knowing in the end, everything is going to be simply just….fine.

i slip under the covers, exhausted. outside is much warmer than most nights. the air is still, there is  a denseness to it that i can almost touch.  the earth scent is palpable. it almost  feels alive. fertile.

from my portrait window, i look out to see the only creatures happy to be out on this very humid night…fireflies almost blanketing my arid yard. it is almost magical. a mute testament to an equally magical truth— that only in the darkest of nights does one appreciate the light.

in my life, i eternally struggle against the fear of loss, of inadequacy, of emptiness . i cringe simply at the thought of pains and tears. i build walls around those that i hold dear and special, and pretend safety, even as every cell of my being knows otherwise.

because life has proven time and again…like a vicious cycle that never knows how to stop…that the things i struggle against are the things that make up this life.

i look back , and am bemused to see that much as my life is made up of so many blessings, it is also quite specked with all that is ugly.  and yet to imagine it wiped clean of all the undesireables would actually diminish it into simply a life less lived….

i am certainly who i am now not only because of how good my life has been, but more so because of how equally bad it has been.

i gained self importance and self worth from all that was good that my life was blessed with, but what made me whole were the pains and the tears and the disappointments and the losses. because in those dark days and nights ….i saw clearer. in those times, my heart was a little more open, and my soul —a little more accepting. but mostly, only in those darker times did i really appreciate the enormity of God’s presence in my life.

it is most certainly true, that God’s touch is more tangible when your soul is raw and pained. only when you are in deep need is life simplified…

it was during those darker times that i looked more closely for God, and felt humbled by the need to call out to a much greater power. and it was also in those darker times that i heard Him in my heart.

and so as i lay quietly in bed tonight, i sigh in contentment for everything that God has chosen to give me. both the good and the bad. and pray that i never lose sight of the grace that even the most painful “gift” can bring into my days.

i am exhausted! and perversely afraid…

looking within myself, i am vaguely aware of the loneliness that i try very hard to hide. on quiet nights like this, this feeling is so much more pronounced. i am painfully haunted by my past…densely bothered that what i wished then to be is not at all what i see in my life today. it makes looking into my future simply disorienting and remorseful.

unlike most, i am uninspired by the quest for the material. i see it not as the end all and be all of my existence. i appreciate everything that it affords me…but i look further than that…which makes my life more complicated and difficult to fulfill.

for one, i am so infused by thoughts of what i have so far lost in this short life. i wonder so many times of unshaded griefs and the almost nagging feeling of wishing to undo mistakes. and yes, i cry so easily these days as well.

how did i get here in my “now” ? what have gone so wrong that i am cursed to lose this much? as much as i am blessed in other aspects of my life, there is a lingering sense of losing so much more along the way.

in all my years away from home, i have lived through so much …and have come out of it almost unscathed. i am very good at so many things…but fail terribly at losing people.

i fear my old age like one would a slithering snake. will i be left standing all alone?  will i be like so many of my patients….on my deathbed, alone and forgotten? but mostly i fear unresolved dreams and wishes… will my life in the end come in full circle, or will it be left untied and loose…like a cup of stale coffee half-drank and sour?  a half-finished book left on a corner table…collecting dust…pages flipping as the wind blows through it???? 

“…he lays perfectly still, his skin pasty and dried up. his almost bald head and brittle bluish nailbeds - a mute testament to the hellish battle lost against mutant cells that has mockingly ravaged his whole body. his lips are cracked and bleeding, his teeth yellowed, his eyes are partly open, yet he stares into nothingness, oblivious to the pains. his hands, once clenched and trembling, now simply lay in supplication…as if even they know the battle is lost.  there is a wheezing sound that come with every rise and fall of his chest, as he struggles to perform a very basic instinct . there is a rotten almost fishy smell that is emanating from within,  a scent I am painfully familiar with.  it is the smell of death claiming yet another wasted life. “

—i walked into his room, careful not to disturb the silence. earlier today we have discontinued all his treatments, leaving only the morphine drip and occasional ativan on the rare occasion that he realizes the state he is in. it happens very rarely now, as if his soul has ,in all essences,  preceded his body in death. he still has his urinary catheter, to maximize his comfort, yet even that is empty…as if his body has nothing left to give. i came closer to him, touched his hand and tentatively ran my fingers on his forehead. he did not even stir.

—there is nothing much i can do. we are now simply waiting for the inevitable. i resolved to stay with him, so i grabbed a chair and sat. and then the tears came. in near explosive gasps, i cried for this man, for his pains, for his impending death, for his dreams unmet, for his absent family. but more than anything else, i cried for this seemingly prolonged and senseless suffering. how much can a poor soul endure? how much longer must he be ravaged, defenseless and unassuming?

i do not remember how long i actually stayed near him. i only remember the exhaustion … I slowly stood up, checked his breathing once more, and quietly walked away. the day is long, and there is no certainty as to when he will be claimed from his suffering…i can only pray that he is taken soon.

Five months later, I found myself tentatively inching my way back into the life I have made. I truly expected my life to settle into a stand-still after Jori left us — yet I am appalled to find it only slowed , only as if in respect to what I have lost , yet in many ways it defiantly kept on also in respect to what I still have left. In perfect rhythm, I also found myself awakening earnestly, hesitant yet without a doubt imposed upon to carry on.

And so, like a tired and over-wrought soldier, I simply gave in to my life’s demands.

At first, the effort to wake up in the morning to get the kids ready for the day was simply too much to bear. The dishes that needed my attention, the drive to work, staying focused enough while there, even my days off when nothing really NEEDED so much to get done in time —were simply too much to impose upon my brain cells. But then, as I often write, life simply took over…not with a vengeance, but with the halting spirit of one who has had too much pains to endure.

And then, as much as I knew was going to happen, my grief over the loss faded well into the deeper recesses of my soul…not really gone, yet still and quiet - like a humbled spirit still needing to be nurtured yet respectful enough of my need to move on.

So many times, in the midst of everything, I would find myself numb and absent - almost missing the tears and pains, like one would a lost love. Yet hard as i try, I was simply wrapped in indifference and void —as if my heart wont even allow me the luxury of the release that a good hard cry would bring.

And then last night, when the kids have long fallen asleep, and the house was spotless and I have just gotten out of the tub after a long warm soak—a veangeful, almost squeezing emotion suddenly assailed my senses! The heaviness of it all almost dropped me to my knees.  The vast void in my heart flooded with the old pain that had wrapped me so aggressively the day I learned of his death—and my entire being was assailed with the grief I had thought had left me….Without warning, I was infused with all the hurts and the sense of loss all at the same time…and underneath all the sudden pains, a serene sweetness, like the coming home of an old lost love….And with my arms wrapped around my self, I welcomed it back with the ferocity of a wild animal that had gone deprived of waters for such a long time. On the floor, in my bathroom, down on my knees…I finally allowed myself the luxury of a good long cleansing cry.

there is a dream that never really ends.

some days i am infused in its wonders, where it not only lingers but it assaults my very being. as if waking up from sleep that brings it only clarifies every feeling of which that dream enfolds. i then walk around as if in a daze, unable to believe the stark reality that it is, afterall, only a dream.

every song, every sigh, every soul-enriching breathe—magnifies the self fulfillment this dream brings into my life. yet all at the same time, there is an emptiness in realizing over and over again that this will forever be only a dream.

i am painfully aware that one day, i must force myself to simply let go! to make peace with myself that some things are better left un-visited…to accept the inevitability of so many things in my past…though i remain haunted by them. there will be one moment in my distant future where i must regretfully turn around and breathe in a sigh of finality. and once and for all leave my past behind.

for now, for as long as i am uplifted by it, i will swim in the wonders that it brings.

i look around … with awe sometimes…but mostly with a blank stare that mimics that of the eyes of someone who unceremoniously finds himself amidst a world so foreign even his skin crawls — not from disgust but from disbelief. my futile attempts to serenely claim all that i see as mine, because they are, is met with the same hesitation that i find i always have when i am lured to accept a gift so grand…

with trembling hands, i seem to want to touch everything all at once, if only to make it all seem real, because they are. i touch then, and i smell…but somehow my senses are muted.  i venture then to just feast my eyes. i see the neatly lined trees, streaming alongside the wide and almost silvery roads. the lamposts that give my neighborhood the quaint and almost old-time feel. there are purplish poenies hanging from garden baskets that hang from wrought iron sticks made to look like a shepherd’s staff. the playground is empty, except for the blue jays that seem to have found a temporary home inside the make-believe train, right next to the swings. from afar, i can barely make out the words of a song that a little girl is singing ever so sweetly. the air is almost crisp, but the sun slowly rising from the east is now also slowly warming it. up above, the skies are clear and blue, no clouds in sight. behind me, my house stands quiet. a brown hare hops across my front yard, barely missing my tulip beds. my grass still moist from last night.

i walk to my patio set, where my still warm coffee waits right next to an old weathered photo album that has been with me since i left my family back home. i reflectively open it and with teary eyes i struggle to see the black and white photo taken so many many years ago, of mom in a whimsy cotton blouse, holding on to my baby brother’s hands as he tried to balance himself on  our brother’s go-cart/bike. of my older brother standing just right behind mom, and of me with my pony tails and multi-stranded short sleeves —all smiling against the glare of the sun as dad happily took that photo.

and just as swiftly as it took my breath away, it also swiftly took me back to the younger years…to our rented house just a stone’s throw from my uncle errol’s. i can now almost smell the muskiness of that old house. can almost feel and touch the grainy asphalt that made up our front yard.  from out front, i can almost hear the squeaky sound that the old guy’s tricycle made as he moved from one house to another, and then finally to ours…to sell his still warm puto and pan de sal. inside our house, the nostalgic sound of sinatra…but more than anything else, i can almost touch my mom and my brothers. and that life i had so very long time ago….

wiping the tears from my cold face, i close the album, got up and made my way into my house. revisiting my past always touches me in ways only the past can…and as i make my way into the front door, i realize how without fail, when i do think about the olden days, i somehow always bring bits and pieces of it into my present life…as if extricating myself from the past only strengthens its hold on me. and whatever piece i bring back, never ever fits into my present.

it is always a mystery…trying to reconcile the life i left, with the life i have now…

and i have stopped trying. in all essence, im sure that’s how it was always meant to be. the past stays in the past to allow us to move on forward……

the sun shined down today. what little snow remained on my grass simply melted and flowed through. the wind is warmer too. i have yet to see a single bud of flower, but it is undeniably spring! even my disposition is brighter. no longer do i spend days curled up under a blanket, a cup of cold disgusting espresso in my hand, just wishing the snows away!  i am halfway through my spring cleaning even.

at night, when i look out of my window, i no longer see darkness sprinkled with silvery stars. i see the moon and the stars brightening an otherwise gloomy night sky.

indeed it is all in the perception!

as certain as the seasons changing, i cannot help but realize the likeness of that to my life. there are dark and gloomy days, but always, in the end, light conquers it all. i am therefore irked at myself for failing always to remember that. for forgetting without fail to simply ride the pains, and look forward instead of back.

and so, as i lay on my bed waiting for sleep to claim me, i wish only to grab YOU with my musings tonight…and remind YOU that no matter the pain you endure at this very moment, KNOW in your heart that this, too, will pass….

like a long lost child, once again i am embraced back by my God. and this time, because of the rawness and absence of so many things familiar, i feel and hear Him the most in the silence of my heart. this realization that He has infused my entirety once more does not come with a loud bang or bold announcements— there is not even one moment that i can singularly hold and point as the moment I came back to him…just a trickling of blessedness and subtle moments of completeness.

i feel it in the mornings when i wake up filled not by dread but by eagerness, in the quiet afternoons when i look out and not see a vast void, instead  glimpse better days ahead. and at the end of the day, when the house is silent, and the stars shine down, i find myself thanking Him for yet another day.

it seems to me that so many times in my life, when i have felt abandoned by Him, in the end, i always find Him just patiently waiting for me to come right back into his grace!

i am appalled by my audacity and pure arrogance…and humbled altogether to realize that i repeatedly am indifferent to His greatness. that there are so many moments in my life wasted in blaming Him for all the gore and bloody pains i endure…when i shoud have reached out for Him, instead of striking out in anger and grief!

i look back at my recent loss, and how i secretly hated Him for allowing yet another pain to engulf me. how i blamed Him for jori’s untimely passing…and then only to find Him with open arms.

time and time again, He proves to me that i am but a speck of smallness in the vastness of His empirical plans, that the pains i endure are not punishments— they are simply small steps in the fulfillment of what He wills. that in this life, we serve our purpose, and then we all come back to Him.

i may never really find out what purpose i serve in this life, but somehow, that doesnt seem to supremely bother me anymore. what truly drives me now is the knowledge that He is with me every step of the way…and that no pain is greater than His presence in my life.

“…there was a certain mystery to the airs around me. it was almost fluid. it was furiously raining, yet it felt like feather as it touched my skin. the grounds were moist, yet as i stepped on it, i barely touched the surface. i was gliding! so this was how it felt to fly…it didnt feel as strange as it should, it even felt mockingly normal! i tentatively reached for my face, my arms…knowing it was going to feel warm, yet scared almost to find out for sure! i am definitely dreaming…yet why didnt it feel unreal? i closed my eyes, ventured to feel more than to see…and from afar, i heard faint songs. the words both familiar yet new. i dare then to open my eyes and explore this almost heavenlike place…

i was assailed by my senses immediately. the air was infused with sugary-peppermint scent! it was everywhere…i looked down, and saw tiny yellow clover-like flowers blanketing the grounds, interspersely mixing with lavender leaves that were twinkling almost! even the air had a certain shimmer to it! there were odd-colored dwarf-like trees scattered sparingly…. i was absorbing all these without even moving from where i was. i carefully sat down, and was surprised to feel marsh-mallowy softness beneath me.

i gave up trying to make sense of it. i resolved instead to simply capture every inch of its beauty, knowing for sure it was all going to shatter into million little pieces the very second i awoke.

i stood up then, resigned to the gliding (as opposed to walking), and magically flowed with the shimmering winds. i was above it all now. and as i flowed over it, somehow it felt like i was flowing through every pore of the beauty of it all. i was absorbing its beauty in as much as i was allowing it to absorb me as well. i looked back and saw purple pieces of everything that is good in me mixing in with the flowers, the trees, even the yellow colored grounds. and again, none of this felt beyond normal!

my skin was tingling with the anticipation of more to discover. yet at the same time, there was no sense of urgency at all. i was almost emboldened to accept all this like it was all mine and was always meant to be mine, and that even if i awoke now—i will someday still return to its beauty …because this heavenly peace was always meant to be.

and just as fluidly as i came to it, it also fluidly left me as i slowly opened my eyes. yet i did not feel abandoned. i didnt feel cheated. within me, i could only feel a promise of more…all in due time of course.

there is afterall a purpose to this sometimes painful life. a promise that when all else has been said and done, in the end there is heaven to behold.

how often do you wish for just a glimpse of what truly awaits us in the far beyond? engulfed in this life that we live, how clearly do we really wonder about where all this living leads to? when faced with our very own mortality, it is inevitable that we are forced to stop in our tracks, to look within for some very real yet mostly terrifying concepts…

i find myself so often reflective of my life these days.  losing my brother made me face up to so many unanswered and mostly fearful questions. in the quiet nights, when all that’s left to do is fall asleep, i find myself staring out into the vast void, mostly in sadness, but sometimes in hopeful bliss that one day, when all else has ceased to exist, i will find my brother and my mom again.

i picture them in blissful peace now.  amongst everyone else that have gone before us. mindful that i am still here, and hopeful that if i live my life as God meant for me to live, that i would eventually find them in soulful reunion. Sometimes, when i try really hard, i can actually even feel them, ever so close yet far enough to be called “my memories”. curled up under my thick soft blankets, with only my thoughts  encouraging me, i can almost see them, smiling…at times simply pensive.

there must ba a special place that they are now together at. there has to be a more assuring continuance to their earthly ends…there cannot be just a void where all that they were simply vanished when they died! there cannot be nothingness after a life spent in trust and faith that somewhere beyond is where we are all meant to be!

as i wonder about these things, mostly i hear only silence in response. but on some nights, i look up and there it is! a lone star, falling…like an answer to my musings! a shower of powdery sparkles that trail the falling rock! and as it disappears into the horizon, a lingering sense that somehow tonight, jori and mom were smiling in soulful promise of another time, another place…together once more…

there is a magical place beyond this world we live in. where happiness infuses every space, where every known scent come together to create a heavenly smell . there,  the winds dont howl, they sing. the air sparkles not of gems but of every teardrop that once fell from every eyes of souls that now inhabit it. these tears now just distant memories of lives past … witness to earthly struggles overcome in death …yet now simply a mist of comfort, as if in utter defiance of the extreme pain it once came with…

unimaginable colors blanket the soft grounds. there is music that is heard not by the ears but with the hearts. and when it rains, it showers these irridescent mists that caresses… and embraces in pure love and acceptance. lamposts made of golds and silvers line the roads lightly powedered with subtly-twinkling gemstones. children’s sweet infectious laughter tickling the senses every now and then…

and the souls that traverse this world seem to glide in wonder of this new found surprise. in their eyes, blessed peace…these eyes that once witnessed human terrors beyond any heavenly soul can sustain, now can only serenely see the redemption it now beholds…

in this world, there is finally an understanding of the why’s and the how’s that once have driven every singular soul that lived away from it. in it, there is only love. it infuses every pore of their being. pains and hunger and unrest…all now in the far distant world they have once held so dear.

in this wonderful world beyond ours, there is  a promise…that one day, we will as well behold it—

…she lays there, paper-white paleness under even whiter but crumpled hospital blankets. from where I stood, she was almost unseen, except I could hear her pained groans, almost touching my heart with its raw need for rest. — and the smell — of rotting flesh and bones, as if death couldnt wait to grasp her, except she was holding on for dear life! or so it seemed…her hair now thinned and falling. like the last leaves of autumn, only hers wasnt coming back ever again. her skin, once flawless and pink now withered and ugly. it appears alien-like, decaying. her nails, blackened and brittle. her eyes are sunken, barely opening now. her mouth, slightly parted, lips cracked and bleeding. foul breathe escaping through her brown-stained teeth. her long and old fingers grasping the edge of the bed, like the last attempt to hold on to this world.

the stark-white room that housed this poor soul seemed almost an abomination to the pains she bore. there is a sink across her bed, tiny droplets of leaking water falling from the faucet every few seconds or so, in sync almost to her diminishing breath. there are no windows, just scenes of rivers framed and hung over her bed. right next to the old plastic crucifix hanging on a nail. the floors spotless at first, but under her bed, red and brown stains, witness to others who were in that very same bed not too long ago. souls that have nothing to do with the one in it now, but souls that are somehow linked to her, in impending death.

she shudders…not for the first time. then somehow she feels my stare, and painfully turns her head, opens her dried eyes and looks at me. im unsure of how long she stayed staring, but in that miniscule of time, she manages to smile. and in contrast to her pained self, her eyes were ecstatic! delirious, i thought. but not! because she summons me closer with a strange smile… and as i came closer, it became clearer to me.

only her body suffers! her mind is somewhere else, impatiently awaiting to leave this earthly failing body, looking beyond what i can see, to the world only she feels. she couldnt wait for the pains to end, not because of it but because of the bliss that she knows awaits her soul when all this was over.

i trembled at that simple truth.

she cringes once more, trickles of blood seeping out of her clenched teeth. i smell her bowels…her urine…and with one last sigh, it is over.

i walk over to her bed…gently stroking her tortured body. in her face, the simplest of all truths…she is smiling in repose.

my little piece of heaven turned to dust —how fragile it is, this life we cherish…yet how brutal and unforgiving at times.

we are driven to create an almost perfect existence, everyday…there is a tremendous aspiration for fulfillment and content. we clamor for that which we call nirvana, even as we truly know it is unattainable in this meager life. yet we push on, many times believing we have reached it, only to fearfully discover it wasnt so.

and then death claims…and bitterly we realize, there is absolutely no point to this quest! why perfect your life, when the end always claims us?

we are all oh so naive —

WE ARE ALIVE! THEREFORE WE DIE!

that is life’s simplest truth. but very few truly has come to terms with it. life does fool you into a very false sense of hope, thinking we are invincible, that life owes us greatness–and if it witholds it, we are tricked!

there are a few of us, though, who get it! a few of us who look inwards instead of out, who discover that life’s true quest is the fulfillment of the soul, not of the material.

there is a far greater achievement than the accumulation of physical wealth! I call it the cleansing of one’s soul. when we persevere to nourish our spirits with love of one another and of one’s self. when we accept the truth that no matter the ending, even when life is claimed at the last hour, if we had enriched our souls, then this painful life will have been all worth it in the quiet end!

It has been months that I have been walking like the dead…oblivious to others, mindful only of myself. Once again, things that concern me alone are things that matter only. Every little comment pertains to me, every little pain, magnified.  I struggle to maintain some semblance of my old life, functioning only to keep some sanity , otherwise numb and unfeeling inside. It doesnt seem so bad, really…coz Ive been here before…in fact have been here so many times before that Im almost welcoming this feeling like an old familiar friend…

I was wrapped in the same lackness yesterday as I drove myself to work…This was to be my 5th day in Oncology. I came in at 3pm for an 8 hour shift. Ive had the same team of patients for days now, they all seem to have be-friended me, a very good way to start a shift, almost guaranteeing a really quiet and un-eventful night. But tonight wasnt going to be one forgettable shift. I was sending home 2 of my patients to die in the familiarity of their own homes. And was admitting one who has just been diagnosed with rectal cancer.

She came in just at the start of my night, painless yet very very scared and unsure.  Today she was told of a fungating mass in her colon, possibly malignant…possibly in the end stage. The first hours were spent calling her doctors, starting her IVs, getting blood samples for more tests, coordinating her oncology consults… I was too involved in tying up loose ends that I may have been slightly robotic and unmindful of her.

By the 6th hour, everything finally quieted down. I had 2 hours left of my shift — snow was steadily falling outside and the winter wind was fierce, halting my need for a smoke.  I was looking at a really boring 2 hours before I could pack up and leave for home. I checked my call lights, those, too, were quiet…except for the new one on the floor.

I hastened to answer her light, expecting to find her in excruciating pain, demanding relief. I opened her door, and found her seated cross-legged in her bed, hugging a torn red book across her chest, not really crying, just awfully silent and simply—sad. I watched her some more, transfixed by this almost alive sense of doom permeating the room. I clutched at my throat, the sense of grief physically assailing my senses. I wanted to announce my presence, but was speechless and almost scared of invading this almost sacred scene….

Before me I see this pained soul. She was almost rolled into herself, her feet under her thighs, her face hidden by her long and flowing red hair. On her lap, silver streaks of tears that had fallen. I dropped my pen, and she slowly looked up…unashamed, almost uncaring that just a few seconds ago, I witnessed her at her rawest and most vulnerable. I looked straight in her eyes, and fell back! —
She had my eyes! She had my pain!  And she also seemed like she knew it too!

Unsure, I haltingly stepped into her room, pulled out a chair and sat across her. She raised her thin and dried up hands and motioned for me to sit on her bed, beside her. I did. I held her thin decaying body, felt her shake, smelled her rotting breathe…we stayed that way for awhile, not needing any words…yet understanding each others’ pains like two souls flying through the very same hell….With every sigh and every tear that fell on her lap, i felt my very own pain slipping onto hers…

She was grieving for her own impending death, I was grieving for my brother’s. Yet somehow it felt like one singular ball of common pain! And as I held her hand, there I met my very own grief…finally making itself known to me, un-assuming and non judgemental…yet demanding that I acknowledge it, embrace it…and accept it…

I dont know how long I stayed with her, unspeaking. Im not sure if she ever really asked me for anything even. But as I stood up to leave her, I looked one last time in her eyes…and this time it wasnt too painful anymore. She too, looked relieved and serene, almost as if we both came to the same conclusion.Maybe we did, maybe we didnt…

But I know one thing for sure though: I AM NOT ALONE! I dont have to go through life thinking Ive been robbed, always mindful only of my own pains…There are so many of us who grieve…all for different reasons, yet always the same hell….and when one’s pain is shared with another, suddenly the burden is not too heavy to bear. That night, in spite the absence of words, I have touched somebody’s heart, allowed someone else to share my pains, and together lifted each others’ spirits to face whatever awaits us in the midst of all hurts.

Nothing is as pure and liberating than sharing the pains of loss…and realizing the futility of fighting despair all by our lonesome selves.

I went home that night with a much lighter heart, more seeing eyes, and a less excruciating pain…

i look upon the stars for answers. i question its flickering brightness about this lingering darkness within. they stare me back at my face, equally fierce and unforgiving as i am. they do not know either.

i look around — searching for clarity. i spend hours trying to understand with no glimmer of light at all.

why do we spend almost all our lives nurturing our need to connect? what is the sense in loving each other so much when all it ends up to is this black hole of nothingness?

we sorround ourselves with our intense love for family and friends…we embrace our lives because we have each other to hold on to. we bravely face our fears only because we have each other to draw strength from. and because we attempt to live in the influence of goodness and godliness, we slowly believe we are invincible . that life is sweet. and faith is everlasting.

and then we face death…in fact, we face them several times in our lifetime. then over and over again, we are reminded of how fragile this world really is. of how temporary everything is…of how futile building our lives around each other is afterall! because simply put, we all perish…and in the end we are left with nothing!

and so i look within myself, and somehow, just like that, i realize nothing really matters…except what we have between life and death! not the beginnings nor the ends…but what we have in the middle of it all. it is not what we end up with that captures the essence of life, but what we have all throughout that gives this life its magical sense. what eventually matters is not that it ends, but how it does. between coming into this world, and leaving it…that is what makes up who and what we are….

and so i look ahead, even as it continues to hurt…hopeful of more tomorrows…but more than anything else, expectant…that when the end finally comes, i may have lived my life to the best that i could have done. so that everyone else that have perished before me, who have helped make me who i am now, may not have gone in vain…….

and this, jori, is the best tribute i could ever give you…..

I liken the feeling to being sick…there is a rawness that seem to envelop me. i spend so many days just trying to swim through a haze. I remember his face so clearly…but I wonder a lot why I cant seem to remember his voice… My dreams of him come sparingly now. I dont feel his presence as often as I used to during the first days after he left us. There is now a different pain altogether…I am slowly realizing his absence, and now I am also slowly having to accept the loss.

Death, by all means, is the only guarantee we all have in this life after all.And we all signed up for it the second we were born. However, no amount of justification lessens the pain when it finally hits us close to home.

As I was forever changed by my mommy’s passing, so am i as well with jori’s death. I am yet unsure HOW, but my bones feel the change already. I am more aware of the fragility of life. I spend days tight with fear of losing. I am driven to re-connect with people in my past, some of whom I have sworn never to see again. I feel the urgency of being true to my feelings…be it anger, fear or love. I feel empowered to laugh instead of smile, to hug instead of tapping someone’s shoulder, to scream instead of whispering. I am  emboldened to embrace life, yet I cringe at the thought of opening myself to more hurts by the truthfulness this new awareness demands.

In my disgruntled days, I am angered more than anything else…

But I know, when my turn to go  comes, all these questions and angst will be answered once and for all…all the pieces to this puzzle will eventually fit… all the pains will come to pass…

and somehow, all these will have been all worth it.

For now, I can only swim through the haze…

.

How can the sun keep rising? How can the stars keep shining? How can the world keep turning? — when my whole world came crushing down all over again?

Once more, this darkness is back. With a vengeance. This pain, almost searing my bones. The loss, almost threatening to swallow me in its emptiness.  I have already given up attempting to make sense of it, have given in to its powers…have even resolved to move on…yet none of these has yet calmed my soul.

I sit , almost in awe, at the audacity his death has claimed!

And yet—the sun keeps rising, the stars keep shining. The world keeps turning…as I stand still and grieve…

Together with Brax, Jori was one of the rocks that have grounded me for as long as I can remember. Sadness and anger, disgust and at times even hopelessness were all lighter to bear because of the presence of my brothers in my life. And now, Jori is gone…

There is a thickness in the air, so threatening and at times even accusing. My memories of Jori, so clear I can almost touch it. Yet instead of gaining strength and clarity, somehow I only miss him more.

His passing has humbled and belittled me all at the same time. And I am angered…that life all around me continue to move.

Underneath all this blackness, though…is a flickering light…a promise almost…that one day this too will pass…and I, like the rest of you, will move along in rhythm to the world’s turning once again. I am unsure wether I look forward to it. For how can I face whatever awaits me when one of the rocks that had grounded me has gone?

I dot all my “i”s and cross all my “t”s, my kitchen is all cleaned and ready for breakfast before i even go to sleep at night.  A poem is not a poem unless they rhyme.All my relationships has to have cleansing closures…

I want perfect endings…that dont necessarily have to be happy. Stories need to have clear beginnings, middles and ends…

Now I have learned in the bitterest of ways that life is ambigouos…is not about knowing but is certainly about being open to make changes, and making the best of what you have.

Jori’s end is certainly the biggest jolt to my once unshaken faith. There is no perfect angle to it that can even remotely appease my cries. I clamor to make sense of it, this loss, hoping to make it a perfect ending ,if only to rest my soul.

But words are flat—words meant to calm  my crumbling faith. Declarations of sentiments meant to ease the grief only succeed in raising more questions. It is frustratingly disturbing knowing his life was cut short, and no matter how hard i try to create for him a happier ending, i come up almost always…short.

For an  obssessive like I am, this by far is the biggest struggle Ive ever had to deal with…almost like crying over spilt milk…knowing the hopelessness of it all  yet still attempting to make sense of it.

There is grief…and then anger…and then hopelessness…a vicious cycle, with no end in sight….

I am sure a day will come when all the pieces to this puzzle will finally fit…making a perfect ending after all…but for now, I wallow in sadness,  I long for the brother I lost… and yes, I cry every single night…

What could be the point in creating an almost flawless life, struggling to become the best of what you can be, sacrificing even—to make others’ lives slightly better than yours….when all of it comes down to this awful void? this loneliness not even the brightest light could penetrate? this audible sadness that death and cruel separation entails?

Loving JORI was not an effort at all! It was in all entirety always a joy, in fact at times a priviledge to be loved back by him. He was first a brother, then a very good friend—who inspite of our distance never failed to be the big brother to me. In the last 10 years of my life away from home, Jori, along with my other brother, was a constant presence in my world. I pictured my older days spent still in the presence of them.

His dying crushed my faith to nothingness.

There is pain too enveloping that trying to describe it escapes even my tireless tongue. It is almost physical, this mist of despair…that I find myself struggling to breathe against it.

Comforting words come out flat and insincere…I feel absorbed into the very same darkness that engulfed me 10 years ago, when mommy died. I am struggling to remain afloat, but fear the worst.

And it has only just begun!

Tomorrow is another bleak day. And I almost expect it to be worst than it is today…….

The deepest sorrow is when words are lacking the comfort they long to touch—when sleep offer no respite—or silence is too loud—

Just when I thought Ive had enough, one more blow hits closest to my heart! And even the tightest hug nor the sweetest kiss is unable to rest my aching heart.

He was our soul mate, the closest I could describe the brother we lost. My life away from home was made a lot better by his presence in my life. And now, a painful void—

I must now spend the rest of my life in his absence. A comforting presence now just a memory! Am I strong enough to withstand yet another loss? Do I have the heart to move on from this pain yet one more time? Will my faith sustain my soul for the rest of my days knowing Ive lost yet another friend?

Ive come back from his funeral, and am slowly inching my way back into my life again…yet somehow I fear I may never find the right way back in!

I miss him so much it actually physically hurts.

And deep within, a small but insistent voice—did I make him happy? Was I a comforting spirit to him as he was to me? Was his life even slightly better with my presence? Does he know the depth of my loss now that he’s gone?

Im sure in all levels the answer is YES….but I have the rest of my life to wonder….

and it has only just begun.

Like a rainbow, all the colors are in you! It shines through, even in the darkest of days. You are resilient. It is true. You dont really think about it, because most days are not ablazed with goodness. You go through life unaware of the grace and blessedness of your life, yet when you stop even for a second, and look back on all the years past, the reality of it will assault you. You are the image of a force much greater than your expectations.

Somehow when you first started this journey you call your life, you knew it in the hearts of your heart. You held this knowledge so dear and close to you. You gained strength from it on some of your loneliest days. And took pride in it. When exactly you stopped believing in your goodness escapes you now.

The truth is quite simple, you lost the faith with every tear shed, with every sadness, with every pain…

It is so easy to lose the one thing that makes you YOU…when you have so little faith in the goodness of God. He made you unto the very image of himself, and blessed you with all the beauty this life has to offer. And even as you repeatedly turned away from Him, He never lost faith in you.

It is not with angst that you are what you are now. It is not with misplaced pride that you have neglected God’s presence in your life…and the purity and love He has gifted you with.  You are exactly where you are at now simply because you FORGOT.

Reach for it now! look into your heart and claim what has always been yours—the goodness that is within you. Awake fresh knowing you are special. Embrace the sweet truth that you are indeed pure and good… that life will sometimes throw you in loops and swirls, but in the end you will always emerge…

Because God meant for you to BE…

The cranberry scented air, pumpkin pies and turkey baking, festively-lit front porches, red-faced children playing in the snow and christmas melodies echoing all around…All the makings of a perfectly sweet holiday. From my corner of the world, our holidays actually start the day after halloween. And not very long after the eerie decors came down, I had my christmas trimmings all up and lit in record time!

The christmas villages are my favorite. They line the dining room ledge, greeting my guests as they come to the front door. Adora, a high school friend, added another cute little village to my expanding collection. Staring at this cute little houses never fails to bring in the christmas spirits…

Im doing the whole All-American Thanksgiving dinner this year. For a long time, I have been hesitant to come out of my comfort box of making an All-Filipino dinner for Thanksgiving. Who could ever go wrong with a platter of egg rolls and a bowl of pancit??? (especially when they come delivered still warm from the Filipino Resto off Golf Road?  But Ive had the whole year to practice my culinary skills…so for thanksgiving, I am roasting a 20 pound turkey drenched in orange juice and , yes, mandarin vodka! I am relying on Emeril Lagasse (food network???) for my dressings and sides though…

This year is a little less hectic in my own little world, as Gian and Shaun have grown a little more. I dont foresee myself tackling a big dinner while running around after them anymore. Creating a semblance of peaceful and joyous holiday should be a breeze this year!

I remember past christmases back home and cant help the nostalgic rush. Back then, I didnt seem to have to work so hard to capture the holiday spirit! Somehow, it just wrapped you up and you’re warmed by it all the whole way! We didnt have an abundance of things back then, and christmases were not measured by the christmas gifts collected. It was, more than anything else, spiritual… I still long to re-capture those sweeter moments…but for now, I have a dinner to prepare, and mounds of christmas gifts yet to be bought…

The winds are arctic cold once again. My beloved trees havent even turned vibrant, some are still green, and yet last night as I was driving home from work, the first drops of snow have arrived! It was totally unexpected, yet my heartfelt laughter was even more so. I dont relish the thought of driving in it, but a picturesque christmas is just what I needed…and so I leapt down the stairs to my basement and unpacked the winter coats once again! The flurries were gone by the time I came back upstairs, but the mood has been set. Its christmas once again…and unlike many christmases past, this year I will make this a sweet memory. I have so much to thank for, and have given so little time to thank God for the blessings.

In record time, I had my christmas tree up and lit, my fireplace dressed up and my little christmas villages up and inviting on the ledge. I am so excited. And unlike the past christmases, this year it will be one for re-awakening.

It is time for my kids and myself to know and re-visit the real meaning of why we all embrace joy and love and family on this one sweet day.

This year, we are all going to visit the poor up on Wacker drive, give away winter clothes and give away my special pumpkin soup with rolls to the less fortunate. We will attend the mass and finish the day with a special dinner I will cook for the firehouse one block up. The presents will only be opened after we have given and given and given some more!

This year, no one will be allowed to return any unwanted gifts (YES! the one very american attitude I have never come to embrace, thank God)…This will not be one centered around us…

For so many years, It is shameful to admit that I have been so overwhelmed with trying to live this life unrealistically, and along the way have shamelessly embraced the very opposite of what I was brought up to believe. Much as I never returned any unwanted gift, I have embraced the culture as well by slipping gift receipts into every gift I wrapped (in case they wanted to return and exchange them). I wasted very many days before every christmas day walking the malls for great bargains, wrapping gifts and expecting even better ones with my name on it.

This time, I will take long and lazy naps in front of my christmas tree, watch the snow fall and turn my little world white, enjoy the hot cocoa drinks and eggnogs with my little family…and just take the sweetest time appreciating this life…and what it still will bring to us.

Tragedy hits closer to home.

All of America is tuned to the horrible unfolding of a tragic life …and now we all fear she is dead. Staci Peterson lived only 30 miles from my home. We have nothing in common…except our lives crossed last sunday when I decided to join the 100 other volunteers who came to lend a hand in search of Staci.

I was supposed to be pulling a twelve hour shift that day. I got the cancellation call at 5:51 am. I couldnt get back to sleep, so I switched on the news. Staci’s family were on, asking people to help in the search they were launching that day. I had been following this story since it broke. And im sure together with every other person who decided to join that day, I was also hoping it wasnt going to be a recovery search.

I had no other plans that day, so I reached over to bernard and told him I was going. He got up and made coffee, got the address on the streets and tips and wished me goodluck!

I was in their driveway half an hour later.  I had my trusted winter coat on but immediately regretted not having thought to bring my gloves. It was FREEZING! And with the winds blowing, it must have felt like 30 degrees then. 3 weeks into thanksgiving, I was already frozen! I was about ready to get on my self pity tirade when I realized why I was there … and all of a sudden I was humbled! Somewhere on this very hour, Staci was laying somewhere, defenseless against the onslaught of the cold.

Was she shivering? or was she dead?

I walked up and met the search leaders, Staci’s friends. And watched as slowly people began to stream in. Some were friends of the family, but mostly just regular people, like me, who opted to give up their sunday and braved the cold…to help look for Staci.

An hour  and three steaming cups of krispy kreme coffee later, we were on! We drove to the Whalon Preserve, just one of the many forest preserves sorrounding the area, and with definite steps after another scoured and combed the forest searching for any clue that may lead us to her. The woods was flat and plain at first, but as we got deeper, we were having to struggle with overgrown thorny dried bushes, brazing the sting of it as they tore through our thick coats…Every garbage bag was cause for fearful excitement and almost dreaded expectation. The wild grass was so tall i had to part it with both arms and sometimes with my legs. My thighs were aching, I was panting ( damn those cigs!)! Yet i pressed on! I was a girl on a mission! I didnt even crave a smoke!

When it was obvious Staci wasnt in this woods at all, we locked arms and looked at each other in sadness and almost relief…(maybe she was still alive?)…

And when it was time to leave for home, my heart felt heavy. I came to accomplish something! and now im going back to the safety of my home, the familiarity of belonging somewhere…while Staci remained lost!

I gave Staci’s family and friends a reassuring hug and promised to offer my help again…the next time they wanted and needed it. I wrote my email add and even gave them my cell phone number, just in case…and with heavy steps, walked back to my car.

I got home much faster than when I drove to the Peterson’s. I walked quietly into my home, washed up and sat in my bed for a long time. I wanted to cry. I wanted to beg. Anything…to understand yet another human frailty. To comprehend how another human being could ever be so maddened as to kill another…

That night, as I struggled to sleep, I offered a more fervently felt prayer— that somewhere , Staci is where she is finally at peace—

5am and deathly cold. The east coast is slowly freezing up again. I am wrapped in my winter coat in the middle of autumn (sad).  I forgot my daily latte, but I choose to keep warm in my car instead of freezing up getting my cup. I am wrapped in warm cozy thoughts but my ass is frozen solid. I dont care. Today, I am intent on sorrounding myself with good thoughts… I have been so sad all these time, and before I totally realized it, I have become a walking book of misery. I have decided to quit the addiction to all things morbid. I am turning a new leaf. I will paint a smile on my face till my jaws crack. I will keep smiling till it hurts. I am tired of the dark clouds that have always preceded my every step. I will smash any sadness-infused feeling before it takes over my entirety.

Today, I will walk slower, appreciate the sunrise, smell the sweetness of freshly cut grass, listen to laughter, and thank God more than anything else…for giving me yet another chance to make so many things in my life right again.

I am finally allowing resolution to flood my life. Inch by painful inch, things that used to bother me are now just old things…

Who was I to have demanded so much of life? Who did I think I was to have wanted so much yet be so unwilling to give? What right did I have to complain about my life when there is so much more trash and evil in the rest of the world?

Have I really been all that selfish? magnifying my pains to justify my whining? Or have I simply lost all sense of perspective all because I have been given so much and failed to acnowledge it?

whatever possessed me, that’s all in the past now… I will now savor every little thing. because one day when I look back, I may realize they were really the big things…

“one doesnt discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time”—Andre Gide —

In other words, in a world dominated by the quest to accumulate earthly treasures, we agree to lose other not less important things in life in favor of  much coveted dreams and aspirations. To some who are less driven, this is a concept not even worthy of a thought.  To those who only live to master the art of bettering one’s self, compromising anything is  torturous and painful but a necessary evil to endure.

When I decided to migrate to the States, It was a decision born out of a long and ardous process. I knew I was turning my back not only from the life I have made for myself, but was also leaving the only safe and warm place I have always known and called home in my young life. Every second that  took me to that decision was painful and sad. I pictured a life away from my family…and i pictured a dreary life away from home…But the sweetness of the promised better life, my American Dream, had a much stronger pull, and so even as I struggled, in the end I reluctantly gave in…(..or did I fly into its arms?)

The life I have made in the States has not been an easy one. It was paved with pains and loss and disappointments. But  It also brought me closer to the life Ive always dreamt of. I have seen through so much impassioned hurts in the 12 years Ive been away from home. I have lost so much since then as well. I had to live through mom’s death without ever seeing her laid to rest. I had to endure the void herabsence left. And suffered the grief all by my lonesome self, almost half a world away from the safe cocoon I had left in favor for my life now. It wasnt all pains, I must admit. Here, I also discovered independence, self reliance, growth.

And now, more than a decade since I flew to the States, I look back with sadness and impotent passion … angered by the enormity of what I had given up to gain what I have.

Have I given too much to gain too little? Do I dare blame the day I ever dreamt of a better life?

Or am I putting too much into it? Because in the heart of my heart, I am painfully aware of a bland truth: that amidst all this rumblings. all i really ever did was LIVE! It has never been about losing to gain. or compromises. or decisions…Left to itself, LIFE would have happened, no matter what…

All I am really achieving now is  justify my losses…hoping against all hopes to make me feel better about the things I have lost for the things I have gained….

Life is. It happens.

Fear less. Hope more. Whine less. Breathe more. Talk less. Say more. Hate less. Love more. . . and all good things shall be yours.

Who am I kidding?

Seemingly this week, since I decided I was going to do all of the above, nothing came close to being right in my life!

I woke up early on a sunday morning (hoping to catch the starbucks at the corner as they opened)…relishing the thought of my hot latte coating my sleep induced throat, and I got pulled over for “speeding” at 43mph on a 35mph stretch! The officer was unrelenting, even as I nearly fell over my rolled-down window trying to show him my nurse’s scrub completed with a hastingly slung steth across my neck (y’know…for good measure in case he missed my SCRUBS)…All this, of course was accomplished in the most subtle way possible…Apparently for this one, “professional courtesy” was not ringing a serious bell at all!  Either that, or my SEKYU friend was pulling my leg all along when he said COPS saw us NURSES as “partners” in our quest to save mankind! and rarely slapped us with any kind of “have-to-pay-this ticket! One would think my crystal clear driving history was going to matter!

Uh-oh…there goes my 95 hard earned greens, not to mention the $3.50 spent on a now cold latte!

Work was, at least that day, bland and almost boring…as one after the other …patients trekked out of the hospital on their way home! I was sprinkling cold water on my face at 11 am just trying to keep awake. ( i had 8 more hours left to kill)…

The drive home from work was (whew!) uneventful! thank God for small graces! But of course fate wouldnt have it all the way…I was 3 houses away from my house, frantically pushing my garage door opener! That Effing door shouldve been opened 5 houses back! And all its doing now is simply quivering, undecided wether to open or stay still! Of course it laid still…and of course I had seriously locked all three latches on my front door early this morning before i left home for my “should-have-been” slow and quiet drive to starbucks. AND of course bernard and the kids were not coming home till late tonight from mama’s farm an  hour away from where I was furiously standing now!

Is it just me? or am I seriously hexxed with almost consistent days like this one? Do i attract badness just because? or does badness attract me just because?

Or maybe, just maybe…I suffer from this because i am sucked into the obssession of avoiding it at all cost, in my quest for “the perfect effing life?”

Because, if there is one thing I shouldve learned before…it is that : there is no formula for a life well lived…nothing at all that will un-make what has been made…or correct what has been wronged!

There is only the rule of” living your life a day at a time, un planned and uncharted”. What happened had to happen…and what didnt wasnt meant to…

or is it?

Every waking or sleeping hour, your thoughts revolve around things that matter only to you or to the people “lucky” enough to have been invited into your life. Every single laugh or sob is magnified because to you, your life is the sun that every other person circles around for. Good things that come your way, are simply privileges that belong to you in the first place… and every bad thing, a curse and injustice. You persevere only to better your life. Blessedness that come to others are, to you, wasted on undeserving beings—because they shouldv’e been yours! When the rains come, you perversely think the world has come to an end because you did not plan for the rain to come on this very day. You are blinded to others who suffer simply because the suffering is not yours to bear.

Or you are blinded…simply because you are…

The world is not there for you to take and ravage! There is pain… and evil…and sickness… and death… And to some, these pains are more familiar than they are to you! Somewhere in the haze you call your world, there is a child unable to breath as the poisons of cancer eats her from inside out. There is a woman too scared to look at her face for fear of confronting the sins she swallowed to keep alive. There is a man chained up in bed too clouded to know why he is restrained…as dementia rapes every single memory he had stored up in his brain. On a much larger scale, there is war and famine and murder and terror. And somewhere there is a family , glazed look in their torn faces, begging for someone like YOU to take notice and HELP…

Human frailty at its purest and rawest form is alive in so many souls that walk this world. You, in your glass house, weakly attempt to convince yourself that for pain to hurt, it must touch you first. That to fall from these inequities, you must first be pushed.

You, who think you are safe and un-involved…in fact fuel and make these pains even possible…Because it is not the pain and suffering itself that ruin these poor ravaged souls…It is not contempt nor fear …but the mere INDIFFERENCE which permit it.

So yes, your life is in fact in  the midst of all this…but not as a mere spectator…but as the hands that move the invisible strings that allow this hell to continue…

The more I reflect on my life, the more I realize that FEAR makes strangers of people who should be friends…

Janet’s sickness has brought all four of us  closer and bonded all over again. More so Ja and I these days since Im the one who is able to really see her the most. But these days, I feel a certain distance between us that is ever so subtle but present none the less. It is not the distance that one feels towards an acquaintance, not the kind that separates casual friends…It is an invisible space that somehow threatens even the closest of friends…THAT of the fear of death…

These days, thoughts of separation and endings and finality shouldnt even be an idea among us. And because I have the most opportunity to be closer to Ja, I am riddled with these monstrous thoughts almost every day…

DEATH is such a living and breathing threat, almost tangible and far reaching that even in my sleep i feel invaded by it. It is also an idea that i struggle to refuse to consider…and like that white elephant we all refuse to acknowledge, the more I ignore it, the stronger and more mocking it becomes to me….

And then, I squirm and try to hide from it, refusing to even talk about it in all its rawness with Ja…Yet even as I attempt to diminish it by ignoring it, the more it becomes stronger!

And now, it is even threatening to distance me from Ja herself! The unease of facing up to it, the refusal to admit the idea of death into our friendship is somehow pushing us farther away from each other… THE FEAR that death commands now makes it so much harder to stand united together against it!

Is our friendship really true enough to stand the test of death? Are we strong enough to not let FEAR invade the bonds we’ve made? If the answer to the FEAR is the willingness to talk about it, then do I have an ounce of strength to confront the issue with Ja?

Or, like most of my failed dreams, will i choose to turn my back and decide to not acknowledge it…thinking that the absence of acceptance means the absence of the problem?

God help all four of us! I know I will remain true and loyal to this friendship…but is my flesh weaker indeed than my resolve?

I havent seen it all, at least not until that day…

It was labor day, and I was pulling an uneventful, almost sleepy PM shift at the medical floor. I had 4 patients, and a mid-shift admission that must have taken me less than an hour to complete. I had so much time left just pretending to work. This wasnt my normal shift, but everyone is required at least 2 holidays to work, and this happened to be mine. I wouldve resented it, but Labor Day was not really a celebratory day for me, so I didnt think I was missing anything beyond the sad walls of the hospital. Besides, they were paying us time and a half to work this day.

We were almost at the end of our shift, and I had just gotten back on the floor from my obligatory smoke break. I had a mere one hour left, so i gave in to the MUST-DO charting.  I chose a C.O.W. (computer on wheels) and headed to the farthest end of the hall…That’s when my sleepy night turned sad, but magical..and almost spiritual!

One of the nurses on the floor approached me with almost hysterical eyes. Her patient was actively dying and she needed help only because this was going to be her first fatality. Her patient was a DNR (do not rescucitate)—sigh— with end-stage pancreatic cancer, and a FILIPINO. And since I was the least busy that night, I felt it was my obligation to step in and help. The first order was to discontinue the morphine drip, maintain oxygenation, call the in-house chaplain, hold the family’s hands, offer emotional support…and more importantly: call the time of death. It seemed easy enough, since Ive seen my share of deaths at work, but also surreal because the patient was one of my own…a Filipino.

I walked into mayhem! Jani, the patient, was propped up on 3 pillows with his wife, Marina, wrapped around him - the son on his knees by the other side of the bed, almost leaning into Jani and uncontrollably crying, and Misa, the patient’s sister - praying the rosary at 60 miles/hr in between hysterical sobs! Silently, I hooked Jani up to the cardiac monitor, not to shock him but to be able to accurately call the time of death when he breathes his final. Respectfully keeping my distance, I couldnt help but be drawn into the circle of sadness…Jani’s heart rate was a mere 20 beats per minute (the normal being 72-80), he was the color of the hospital sheets, and was agonally breathing!  My nurse-mind told me it was going to be over soon…I grabbed a chair, still keeping my distance…and quietly sat and waited. I could almost smell death! It was permeating the entire room, it was even on my hair…Jani’s heart rate suddenly dips into the single digits. And Marina screamed, begging Jani to wait for Joey, his other son, to arrive from home. Apparently, everybody significant to the patient was in the room, except his other son who was coming from about 35 miles away.

I started to panic! This wasnt going to be as simple as I thought! Jani was going to be shaken and begged and cried for…not only because of his impending death, but because he was going to be asked to wait for a very special person to make peace and say his last goodbyes! This was hitting me so close to my heart! I almost immediately wanted to trade places with another nurse…but somehow I was also being drawn into the whole scene. I looked at the monitor and found myself almost praying that Jani would indeed wait! Underneath the mayhem, though, was another dilemna playing out in my Nurse-mind:

“How could we demand this of Jani? Isnt this supposed to be about Jani and making sure I provide an atmosphere of peace on his last few minutes?”

I decided to focus on the monitor instead, and clinically detached my heart from the whole drama…only to be slammed right in the middle of it as I witnessed Jani’s heart rate dip to the zeroes for almost a minute… and miraculously re-start in the normal sinus tachycardic rate of 95 as soon as Marina would cry out for him to wait for Joey! This happened several times, where the monitor showed asystole ( or flatline) for a minute and a half to almost 2 minutes…only to re-capture normally at a slightly higher rate!

I looked straight into the unbelieving eyes of the chaplain, linked my hands to his, and knelt down! Jani was clearly holding on…at least until after his son arrives. And several times he was already gone, only to come back on borrowed time…

I was witnessing a miracle!

I didnt know when to call the time of death as Jani repeatedly played this almost cruel…yet poignant joke on us! or at least on me…

And then he flatlined for a full five minutes . Finally… I looked at the clock, nervously, to call the time of death and Joey stormed into the room! Distracted, I led Joey into a chair I had previously placed beside the bed, and got ready to comfort him as it dawned on me that he came too late….when all of a sudden, the monitor screamed its fateful beeps again! Jani was back! at 95 beats per minute! on sinus tach! And maintained it for a full 3 minutes!

As Joey uttered his tearful goodbyes, and Marina kissed Jani on the lips for the last time, the monitor eased into the fateful flatline beep! And then I heard his last but long and almost relieved breath!

I was almost afraid to look at the clock, halfly expecting to hear the re-capturing beep again…but that was the last we heard of Jani!  He was really really gone!  Glancing at the wall clock, with an exhausted sigh, I called the time of death at 2300! He was finally on his way home…He left on his own terms and on his own time…

I left for home an hour past my shift, shaking with the sweetest revelation ever! I was almost tingling to the very core of my being! Tonight I witnessed the closest proof to the after life! I watched a man cross the lines between life and death several times…In his limp body, i caught a glimpse into the other side! and what I saw was the sweetest gift ever given to me! Tonight I can finally come to terms with my own sadness over mommy! 

After this shift’s drama, I can willfully say that mom is indeed in a better place somewhere beyond the sadness of this world! For if death is indeed the end of life, and if death is where we melt into nothingness, where only stillness and emptiness exists…then where is this man coming back from ?

Thank you Jani! for allowing me to witness your miracle!!!!

” every fear, every smile, every laugh  and   every frown…will be a memory…”

Imagine the powers we hold! imagine bearing this knowledge before any mistakes are committed? Imagine a world, even, where every single person only strives to create happy memories?

i   am where i am now because of where i allowed myself  to be in  my  past.  the sadness i guard so dear, and the regrets i  heavily carry within…are nothing more than what i cursed myself  with…and the joys of life merely what i blessed myself with!

every single moment that i live…every decision i uphold, every single choice  i  make determines the memories that i cherish tomorrow.

true, there are so much more in life that are not dependent on  my choices …so much grief that are beyond anyone’s control…but the decision to accept or the urge to change what is still changeable…lie solely within me! the understanding that when  i am pained,  i can either wallow in self pity, blame others, or worse exact revenge OR attempt to right the wrong, admit mistakes, get up and start all over again, with the sole intention of learning from this….this is what eventually makes good memories.

i may have yet wasted so much opportunities to make my today sweeter than it is now, but to have realized this one truth in life may yet make up for the rest of my tomorrows. i can only hope that when i start all over again,  i may not lose sight of this!

Like the finality of a closing door,  or even the sudden silence left after an orgasmic serene song has ended…that is the sound i long for you to hear when i am finally laid to rest. To be left breathless after the chorus of my life is finished…is how i want to leave this world…to be missed and remembered not for who i pretended to be…but for the person i really am.

When everything is finished…will my exit be the way i’ve always imagined it to be? will I have touched a million souls, and will i have changed even a few grieving minds? will I have uttered words that were exactly what uncertain souls longed to hear?

With the perishing … would i have drained the joys and grief of life to the very last bitter drop? When i close my eyes for that one final time, will I have the serenity …that I have left this world at exactly the right destined time…?

Or…will I be fighting it with every bit of my draining breath???screaming injustice…for not having had the chance to leave a mark? Will I be unforgiving…and livid…breathing my last like the sound of rushing cold waters over un-still rocky river bed?

or yet again, will i leave in utter silence…a nobody until the day I die …without a single soul sighing…even in relief? ? ?

I shudder sometimes, that I obssess over morbid thoughts…but isnt DEATH the only certain thing we can count on in this world???+

what do you do when you’re faced with your own mortality? when you look at a friend’s uncertain eyes, demanding  an answer to life’s strife??? how do you truthfully say ” i dont know”…because you really dont? how do you maintain an air of confidence when the smell of death and finality is infused in your every being?

the idea of losing a friend in death should not even be an idea at this time in my life… were not even halfway through what most may call a lifetime…i am fighting it with every cell of my soul!

Janet is not just a friend! she is not merely a passing soul who has touched my life in the purest sense … i imagine my older years in the company of hers and agnes’ and joy’s friendship…and it pains me to be forced to consider a life without her…

what we have has surpassed all presumptions. this friendship has made this life so much lighter to bear. and so much more exciting to expect…

but has it surpassed the idea of losing one of us? are we beyond life’s only idea of certainty? that of the idea of death? is my soul going to survive this if it is allowed to happen?

every night i pray…not only for redemption…but for strength …

incessantly nagging…ferocious and heated…sometimes sweet and embracing…these thoughts dont creep up on me…they explode and slam into my every being…and for a while, they linger…with every cell of my being practically invaded and assaulted…they mostly hurt but sometimes they heal…i breathe and live them for awhile…and then they fade…like an old film disappearing into nothingness…leaving behind a tired and breathless anticipation of the next sweet time they dominate my life once more…

am i cursed in this life…to forever remember?????????

“…you sat 3 rows behind…you looked disinterested, but I caught a few sweet glances. We were both seventeen and in my young mind, somehow I knew you were going to be a gift in my life. And for the next few months, i watched myself fall ever so desperately in love with you…I learned every expression, every smile, every blank stare…You were my last thought before I slept, and the first when i awoke…

Suddenly, getting up at 6am to get to school by 7 wasnt such a torture anymore. Phys Ed was even exciting for me, just because I got to sit close to you, pretending friendship, but really falling ever so helplessly in love with you. I relished every debate at sociology, longed for the field trips, lived for the after-class long talks at Mon’s boarding house with you. I was swimming in pretend affair…

I dreamt of a life filled of you…yet what was not meant to be was certainly not…you said so yourself…so i moved on and fell for the next guy that showed a slight interest. I knew it was love on rebound, and was not going to last…and so it didnt. Although in the 6 months i tried to spare myself from pains from you, I somehow also hurt from him…so when you finally came and said you cared, I couldnt give you my heart in whole…do you remember when I found you again, and professed my truth? the sweet way you turned me down by asking me to hold on? and then the harsh way you simply disappeared? did you know I hurt bone deep for so long after that? and did you know how I simply gave up and promised myself never to let you hurt me again? the very same way I hurt you? i know it pained you when i denied you that very first time. and im sure you knew i regretted it because I grieved for you and I for the longest time. I spent almost half my lifetime regretting you, and dreaming against all faith…

I havent seen you since. Its been 14 years … Ive once again moved on. But some fires are never extinguished, and much as I love my life now, there are some really sad nights when I think of you and wonder…what if????

Im a lot older now…what Ive seen in this life since then have changed me tragically…somehow even I dont recognize myself sometimes…but when i think of you and the times past, I am reminded of who I started out to be and who I wanted to be….You were a gift in this life, not to be with forever, but to incessantly remind me of who I am meant to be….”

I woke up and immediately felt somehow TODAY was different. I waved the feeling off…It was afterall just another monday. It was scorching hot outside, the trees were almost bent over in supplication to the punishing heat. The air was so thick, as if in anticipation for something intense to transpire. Of course nothing did. I kept thinking I ought to remember this day…something happened this day, 10 years ago….something horrible that changed me so wildly into who I am now…There was a nagging sensation at the back of my head….I remember how it felt years ago, but for the love of God, couldn’t remember exactly what…

I went through my morning routine…and as i climbed down my stairs, I glanced at the framed jewel hanging in my living room…and slowly but traumatically I am slammed back to THAT day, ten years ago…

Today was my mommy’s 10th year death anniversary! Somehow, my physical brain attempted unconsciously to not acknowledge it…but the soul never forgets, and so mine reminded me…

I sit on the stairs, and just like the trees outside, I bent down in supplication….not to the heat…but to the painful coldness of the reality…that mommy’s gone…

What would it feel like to fly, I wonder. To feel the rush of winds on my face? To break away, and not have to care?

There are rare moments when I wish I could shed off life’s grime and dirt, stretch out and take off, start all over again. I imagine a different life, not necessarily better than mine…just different. I dream of taking off every iota of despair, un-realized dreams, fears and regrets…just peeling everything off and starting anew. Would it be redemption? Like screaming at the toppest of my lungs and hitting every single high note along the way?  I can almost see myself…stripped off every cell of who I used to be, lilke a blank canvass waiting to be created…Pure white, without a single smear of past mistakes. 

And then I think of the people in my life now, ones who have helped me be what and who I am now. People who have made every single strife lighter to bear…even those who have caused grief … I remember each tear Ive shed, and every single hand that offered relief…and I feel shame…for even imagining ESCAPE….

There is nothing more pure and white than a soul who has been through hell and have survived…nothing more sweet than a restless soul finding solace…

We all want to run away some time…No one ever really does…

Its a perfectly fresh spring day. The sun is out, but not scorching, the wind is blowing, but not fiercely. My poenies are blooming, and lavenders scent my air. The birds are singing, kids laughter echo from the nearby playground. I hear faint voices from a car radio parked across the street.

But looming just beneath the surface is a dreadful feeling of uncertainty. I can almost smell it too, mixing with the sweetness of the lavenders. There is a throbbing, almost alive, sense of doom. The air is almost heavy with it. I cannot see it, but I can almost definitely touch it… I struggle to ignore it, but it is there…almost threatening…and potent…

I resolve to deny it. So I go about my day…I laugh at silly jokes on TV, but my laughter come out loud and forced. I decide to clean the house instead, but every sweep of my vaccum brings on a much louder noise only I can hear…I give up and lay down on my chaise. I grab a book and flip the pages. The words are blurred.

There is no running away from it. This unknown presence is almost liquid, invading every pore of my being. I am drowning in it…Im almost sure it knows I am afraid of it,too. I can sense it almost mocking me.

I grab a blanket, a pitcher of iced tea and resolve to mock it back…walk to my backyard, spread the cheery blanket on my grass and ease onto it. I lay down, look up at the clouds and breathe… Im almost asleep…but my neck tingles with the anticipation of something…I roll over, grab the book and start reading…The pages start flipping by themselves…blown by the slowly strengthening winds…I hear the faint rumble of thunder from the south…and the first drops of rain fall on my nose…Defeated, I pickup my things and guardingly walk back into the house….

I am scared.

Im 36 years old, almost half of an average lifetime…but somehow it seems things are just starting in my life. True, most of my dreams I have already seen completed, yet just as think “things” are close to perfection, some newer quests demand my obssession. I always welcome these sweet interruptions, and tackle them with the same intensity I’ve always given past endeavors. I believe once you have been grounded by stable family and solid friendships, nothing else seems hard enough to handle. There are only very few things now in this life that scare me. And last week I had to face one possibility that almost knocked the life out of me.

Janet, one of my very best friends, fell ill. She was diagnosed with Acute Renal Failure, with only 10% function left in both kidneys. She was now needing indefinite dialysis, until a kidney transplant is even made available to her. I got the dreadful phone call last week on monday. She was getting dialysis through a temporary jugular catheter that was emergently placed on her on the day she was admitted. I was on the first plane out of Chicago the following day and arrived in Ontario at 7am. The next three days were among the worst days Ive ever had to endure. I was functioning purely on adrenaline, as I struggled to arrange her treatments through her doctors and nurses. I figured if I focus on the essentials, then I wouldnt have to face up to the very real and tangible possibility of losing her. I’d like to think I spent those three days fruitfully. By Thursday, on my last night in Ontario, I had come to a really intense realization: Janet has been in my life for the past 18 years…she has been a really great anchor in my life, along with Agens and Joy… she is a good part of who Ive grown to be… AND I wasnt going to watch her die like this!  I barely had time to actually bond with her those three days, with my time spent mostly on arranging her treatments. But on thursday night, after I have packed up and gotten ready to leave her, I hugged my dear old friend for a long time, fighting dreadful images of death and despair, and realized that wherever this sickness leads us,  I know we both have been blessed to have found each other. That the friendship we built all through these years is among the sweetest gifts God ever gave us. And should death triumph, in the end we still lose nothing……

We have been lucky to have been blessed with very good people who were amazingly outpouring their support and guidance during those three days, that by the last night I was there, I knew I was leaving her with perfectly un-assuming and good friends…

I have been back since then. Im still on the phone every day with her. By now, Agens and Joy have also already started arranging things back home, in case Janet has to go back. We still have not been told wether this is reversible or not. The tests are still being done. In fact, truthfully, nothing is yet certain.

But one thing is definite: Agens, Joy and I will never leave Janet…We all know we are all in this together…as we have always been all through these years. We hope to see this nightmare end one day…Afterall, a promise is a promise…and we have long sworn to see each other through old age…

The nuns at St Agnes Academy drilled it to us endlessly.Mrs Andes even danced and bent over backwards hoping we’d all get it. Sure, the IN thing was to resist it, so even on bended knees, and out-stretched arms, we laughed our way through the whole ordeal. We came up with “sins” to confess, because we’d run out of them as they had Father Ham come to hear our confessions every friday. A few of us even made a sport of it, applauding the best “sin” to outrage sister lydia. Noon time prayers were the most “horrific” as we prayed the ANGELUS on empty and near growling stomachs.  We struggled to understand how wearing short skirts and dangling earrings affected our chances of knowing JESUS and growing near the Son of God. So again, we competed against each other who could wear the shortest skirts, and the longest earrings. (and the winner was always that one girl who had the darkest eyeliner on top of it all)…

Some of us, however, took it to heart…and years later we find they were the smart ones…

Because years later, as we all dashed into our own little lives, and as we struggled to make sense of ourselves, we realized how true it is that a life filled with prayers is a life filled with blessings. The struggles in life that we all must suffer through seem lighter to bear when we take that one significant hour in prayers and adoration. Several times we find ourselves drifting away from HIM, mostly because of fear, at times because of pride. And time and time again we are reminded to look back and recognize God’s absolute influence on us. And every single time, we are drawn back into HIS embrace…humbled and belittled once again, but blessed and loved all at the same time.

I wish at times that I was not as resistant as I was then. Maybe I wouldve understood GOD more, and his power over my being. Maybe life wouldve been easier. but then again, maybe not. But that is insignificant. Because what matters the most is the acceptance of HIM, and the blessedness that comes with HIM in our lives….

This truth is much fresher to some of us than it is to others. Some of us who still keep in touch know whose lives have been touched by this truth more than others. A few of us are still waiting for that great big white light to flash re-awakening of old habits and knowledge drilled way back in high school… Again, insignificant! Because knowing God as simply as i do, i know that everything happens in HIS time…

So meanwhile, hang in there! And LIVE… knowing God never turns away…that most often it is US who do. +

I hate hot humid days. I dont look forward to rainy, wet and slushy days either. I am appalled by dirt and mess and foul smelly things. I do not like using public rest rooms. But most of all, I hate indifference..its a much stronger emotion than anger. I abhor dishonesty meant to demean,dishonor or simply to discredit another. I hate friendly users, people who cream you for favors and leave you in the cold when they see no need for you any longer. I am disgusted by loose talks, and self depreciation, and disloyalty. There is nothing more excruciating than having to witness someone invite loneliness and evil intents on to themselves- no amount of encouraging words nor saving grace can convince them otherwise. I have no pity for stupidity. I detest heated arguments, unexplained animosities and unreal expectations.

I wish we could all do without unresolved issues, regrets and presumed relationships. 

but most of all, I hate un-answered questions, missing old friends, and wishful thinking

I love waking up to sunshine and lavender scented airs. I adore hearing my kids laugh at something silly- the musical sound of their giggles never fails to put a smile on my face. I love the spontaneous urges to drive off - on a whim- with bernard. I simply cannot get enough of the quaint villages off Geneva town, the antiques and the crafts. I love good bargains. I live for my starbucks latte and a good book under the canopy. Im obssessed with books and love that I get to read  as often as I can. I enjoy baking and making pretty mini cakes. I look forward to the first snow and sitting by the fireplace with a warm latte and a sweet book. Autumn leaves and cinnamons and spices warm my heart as does the sight of falling leaves just before the arctic colds hit.

But most of all, I love that Bernard is in my life, who makes so many things possible and true. He balances me and makes up for what I lack. I”d like to believe that I do the same for him.

Come June 20th, we will have been married 10 years, and will have been together 13 years. The magic is still there. Some things have changed, some fires extinguished, some rekindled. But over all, I still long for the sweet moments of coming home to him, spending long weekends at the rivers with him, and just being silly at home.

I know life takes bad turns as much as it gives joy, but knowing I have all these things in my life makes looking forward to another day more fresh and exciting!

Today, I saved another life. Granted, saving lives is the essence of what I do everyday I work, today was so much different and special. I actually diagnosed a condition saveable simply by administering blood. At the end of the day, I witnessed a limp, pale and bleeding 30 year old body post operatively change into someone who finished her first complete meal in 3 days, walked unassisted to the bathroom and colored up to a more normal pink.

I see this miracle almost on a daily basis…but never where I was the fuelling force in discovering and healing. I am proud of myself. But more so, am blessed to have been able to save yet another life.

You see, in a very exhausting and sometimes unforgiving profession such as NURSING, at the end of the day, what really matters is that one has touched and influenced yet another life, that one has made a difference and made someone’s life better, pains eased, and in some , deaths more bearable.

It is on days like these that I am grateful to have chosen this profession! I see nothing more fulfilling than to have the privilege to be able to make a living out of what some may call a mere calling to help the sick and the dying! True, I get paid for what I do, but to be able to do this everyday and go home knowing I have done another day’s worth of what God has meant for all of us to do for each other to begin with,  is worth more than any amount of the almighty dollar paid every 2 weeks.

There are as much pain as there is fulfillment in my chosen field. But every single life helped outbalances every single tear I have shed in frustration and desperation.

Tomorrow’s another day, and I hope it is as fulfilling as it was today…

Imagine this:

leaves burning under the mango tree, chickens crowing signalling the start of a new day, that common guy on his bicycle at the crack of dawn selling freshly baked pan de sal, ariel ayque on the radio blasting some not-so-innocent politician before the clock even screams 6 am, mom frying rice with garlic with longganisa on the side….

for 20 yrs, i woke up to this sweetness every single day…I still remember those languid days that are now long gone…and i thirst for the sameness of it every day now that i am halfway across the world living the AMERICAN DREAM.

Life was simple and un-hurried. Dreams fuelled my days. I knew I was going to be away from all these someday. Someday came far too soon.

I came back  home 10 years after i first left it, and although so many things have changed, some familiar sounds and scents still lingered. It wasnt the same common guy selling his bread anymore, of course… Mom hasnt been around for years even, and i dont think I heard ariel ayque blasting away on the radio…But waking up every morning for the whole month that i was there brought me back ever so sweetly to those days…

There is absolutely no other place like HOME…

A normal day at work must start with a hot skim latte,a quick drive to the hospital, reports sorted with 4 patients ONLY, 2 of which are to go home that day!

Today, unfortunately, wasnt a typical day.

I woke up with an insane migraine, too late to call in sick, becoz of course I woke up 30 minutes before I was supposed to be at work! So i dazedly stumble into the bathroom,jumped into the cold shower, hastily swiped make up on my still asleep face, and groggily made coffee at the kitchen. Only, i put too much grounds and i ended up with a really muddy version of an espresso. With no time to spare, i slugged the pathetic excuse for an espresso down my parched throat, grabbed the keys, and drove to the hospital!With only minutes to spare, I fought for a first floor car space, only to find the garage full, so i had to ease into the fourth floor (which was sure to be a nightmare just getting to at 12 midnight later when im off work), and double parked (!) again! oh hell! so what’s another elk grove cop ticket???

I get to the staffing office, only to find out I was going to be at the ER today! There goes my 4-patients-only day! With my luck, i am going to end up with the first drunk to walk into the ER, or worst, the first code! Like a ghost, I floated into the ER , to find hell hole at my midst! Five ambulances simultaneously bringing in 2 full cardiac arrests, 3 car crash vics, and a homeless found passed out drunk at the BUSSE WOODS…

I couldnt tell you how i eventually found myself at the end of that shift, becoz for the love of God, I couldnt remember either! I can tell you though ,for a fact, that the 2 full arrests made it to the ICU, one of the three car crash vics went home with only a few scratches, and the other two went straight to the morgue. What happened to the homeless drunk I couldnt remember!

With still half of my brains intact, I struggled to gather my stuff, found my car keys after an hour’s search, forgot where i parked and found my ticketed car only after the hospital security decided to help me. I drove home as fast as I could, only to remember I was to pick up pizza for dinner that night, made a U-turn and slammed my newly washed car straight into the ditch where four deers were caught unguarded! After a quick call to 911, my pathetic car was towed out of the mess, and i went on my dazed merry way to pizza hut. I got my bbq chicken pizza, drove home uneventfully, and only as i opened my front door did I finally feel safe and grounded….

I absolutely cannot do this again tomorrow!

But of course I had to…so I washed off the grime build-up off my exhausted self, grabbed a slice of the now cold pizza, and crawled into my bed…hoping to pass out and stay passed out until I have to drag my ass off the bed and into the shower again tomorrow…

…The alarm blares at 7 am! I stretched and attempted to remember where I was supposed to be that day…jumped so high as soon as i remembered I was to be at work that day!!! I repeated my sad routine, only this time I was flying off my skin because I was going to be fearfully late (and a nurse is never late or somebody dies!!!)…

I found a really good car space at the first floor, thank God!…and with no time to spare for a hot latte, I walked into the staffing office, to find a confused nursing supervisor trying to figure out why a wrinkled, almost out of breath, nervous nurse was at the office asking where she was going to be at today!

I wasnt on the list! It was my fucking day off! and I just wasted the first hours of it trying to kill myself to get here on time! God forbid I did anything right!…

And as soon as the shock of it wore off, I toyed with the idea of A FREE DAY! and I almost fell off my car seat! I took the day off because my husband and 2 kids were coming home today from a week in New York! I set the clock at 7am because American Airlines was coming in at 7:30 at Ohare International! It was 8:45 now, and i fucking forgot my cell phone! Oh God! what else can go wrong????

Apparently everything! And i wont even bore you with the rest of the day’s detailed mishap! It only matters that my family is safely back at home, I am soaking in my tub with my long over due latte at 6pm… I am halfway my Nicholas Sparks’ DEAR JOHN, and im psyching myself into getting ready…becoz tomorrow was another day’s work!!!!!

It is true… that when you find the truest of friends, there is a void in your life that is all of a sudden filled. There is a certain peace and contentment in knowing you belong somewhere… and in that friendship, you finally lay down all your guards…Because in it, there  are no pretenses.

If there is one aspect  outside my family life where I actually found a home to come home to, it is in the friendship I share with agens,joy,janet and chisel. We were drawn to each other not because of the similarities we share, but through the differences that completed each one of us together. It is a friendship not born out of a need to satisfy oneself, but that of a desire to complete each other. We were never plaqued by the usual jealousy and back-bitings that so many friendships have to endure. And unlike other relationships that demand constant  affirmation, ours have surpassed that need even. 

Grown now as we are, we all know in our hearts that we have created something really beautiful and endless. 

We each have our own separate circle of friends apart from each other…it is something that we all need to grow…but bone deep we know that no matter the distance and the space , we will be forever loyal to this bond we have made….

If there is one thing i know I was blessed with, it is with the presence of these four people in my life …

What defines me? 

Is it the actuality of what I have in my life now, or the absence of so many more things i wish to gain? At the end of the day, what consumes me most is not what I have but what is absent in my life. And that worries me….

I dont, for one second, wish to diminish what I have so far achieved in my life. Afterall, getting to my NOW was not an easy journey. Along the way, I had lost quite a few people in my life, some simply lost through distance, others through differences. I did gain others that are as important to me now as the others have been in my past, but that simply does not make accepting such losses much easier. There were also other dreams given up in favor of others. All in all, in retrospect, It seemed as if I was only gaining some so I could lose some.

And the closer I got to what I perceived to be my ultimate dream, the more I lost in other aspects of my life, making it harder to appreciate the gains as I reflected on what ive lost along the way.

And that, again, worries me…

Because if I am eternally regretting my losses, how do I ever really find contentment in what I have now? Will I be forever longing for things past…and be forever doomed never to appreciate what I have so far been blessed with?

It all seems like a cruel cycle… with no end in sight…

“my daughter, all the things I prayed you’d be are all the things you are. You were once my little girl, now youre my shining star”

Cross-stitched on a pale yellow cloth, bordered by painstakingly placed poenies, that was my last but the most special of all gifts from mom. I have only been away from home not even a year, when she called to have me pick up a box of gifts from her which her friend had brought in from home. It was only a 30 minute drive, and I took it in 20 minutes. I was so excited. She had listed everything down in a letter she sent a month ahead. It was a box of everything she thought i had missed since leaving home, including a platic bag of “kropek” that I used to buy from a corner store back home. I opened the box as soon as I got in my car before even driving back, and the first thing that caught my eyes was the very thing she didnt even write about.

You see, mommy was never the “i-love-you-touchy-feely” kind of mom, she was always  practical although always had the the gift of making me laugh hysterically. And this cross-stitched jewel was not something you would expect to get from her…Yet there it was…and this time, she made me cry with joy, and pride and love. I didnt know either, that it was the last gift I would ever get from her. Two months later, she was diagnosed with colon cancer, and three months later, she passed on.

I had always wondered how much she loved me, because she never said it. I knew she was always there for me in all my trials and challenges, always ready to catch me when i fell (which was too often than id care to admit)…Ive always known I had her to depend on all throughout my younger years…but somehow I had always longed to hear it from her… And wrapped in the stitched words, before she moved on and left us, SHE DID…in more words than i could ever imagine!

I had since then framed it, and it has seen me move from my humble little apartment by the brooks, to my first house and now in my second…It is the first thing you would see coming in through the front. And the last thing i would see every night before I climb upstairs to sleep. It is an affirmation of my mother’s love, a source of inspiration especially on some really sad nights, and my most valued possession!

It never fails to lift my spirits, even when all else has failed.

I know this in my heart, that wherever she is, I have made her proud!

Im once again in one of my more pensive moods tonight! Its gotta be the warm summer night, when everything is heightened! The air is thick, the night birds seem louder than usual, and the stars are almost within reach. Im enjoying another one of my cancer sticks, with my loyal cold latte in hand. The kids are in bed, and my sweet love is watching another old sci fi flick. Thoughts of past years invade me. These memories seem to be encroaching my mind ever so often these days. Im too young to be this nostalgic, and should be too busy to entertain old songs and memories. But here I am, enjoying thoughts of earlier years, a time when all I ever worried about were senseless things like do I get drunk tonight or just hang out at agens’ house while talking about  lost loves and passions…

I miss those days. And I miss the people who were in it then.

Life was so much easier, and seemingly more sweet and languid. Although then, as I was living it, I couldnt run fast enough to get to where I am at now. Had I known then what I know now, I wouldnt have hurried too much. I feel as though I may have missed so many turns just hastening to get here in the NOW. I met the most loved and the most influential people in my life in my past. But I didnt know that then. I wish I had been more appreciative of that when i still could.

I wonder if I am remembered like this as well? I wonder if I ever touched anyone’s life the way so many in my past did me?  Now that im living the life I used to only dream of, I wonder sometimes if this is the life I was meant to live to begin with? Am i really where I am exactly meant to be? Were my decisions meant to be so I could be where Im at now? Or were they mistakes made? Ones that would have led me somewhere else had I not made them?

I question so many things in my life. Not because I am unhappy in it, but simply because I can.

The night is getting darker, and now quieter than when I first sat down to reminisce. As usual, I really didnt get anywhere once again. Come to think of it, I never really do. Remembering seems so achingly like a never ending circle, one that never really takes you anywhere, just around and around and around…And when youre lucky, sometimes the past revisited seem nearer and more reachable than any other nights. Just like it is now, as im finishing my third cancer stick, It almost seems so near I can actually touch it if I can only reach out farther enough…

The last thing i ever wanted to be is what I am now! Ironically, i think this is where my heart has found its home and where i feel the most wanted and worthy.

Ive always dreamt of the theater, acting and singing on stage…long before i even met JULY, the burning force of what i call now my biggest missed turn. For four years, if only in HS, i lived the dream of doing what i loved the most. The final showcases of every play ive ever been in were born out of my young tears and blood! That was the life i dreamt of, and for a while thought would pursue!

But practicalities and harsh realities swayed me to the more reachable and realistic quest. And of course mom’s convincing powers weighed in heaviest. So against all my wishes, i regretfully shifted my interest to NURSING.

Id like to believe that it is only innate in me to pursue a chosen goal with passion and at times obssession, and not long after, I was attacking the course with the same heat and passion I once thought was only reserved for acting.

So years later, long after my mommy even passed on, I find myself actually living the life she once dreamt for me! And with awe, i am finding that i actually love it! It is not only my bread and butter, it is also my ministry.  Every patient i take care of is not only a face or a case number in my book. I find myself getting personally involved, at times even discover myself crying with every single one’s plight!

Being a nurse is not the easiest thing in the world. Waking up at 5am is just for starters. And then there’s the morning drive trying to beat chicago traffic, finding a space to park that’s not going to force me to walk a mile to the hospital entrance, or finding the time to have breakfast (coffee at least) at all…There’s also the expected nurse-doctor “mandatory” battles every single day! And the struggle to beat every other nurse on the floor at the PYXXIS trying to distribute the morning meds before the noon meds are due.  The occasional code blues not only add to the already confused day, it drains the life out of you as well….

But over all, nothing compares to the completeness you feel at the end of every shift!The feeling that once again, you have made a difference in at least a few people’s lives, if only for that 8 hr shift!

If I were given a second chance to re-do my life, There is nothing I will change!  My mom may have been the convincing factor in my decision to be a nurse, eventually though, I made it into my life….

There is only so much I can take, so little I cant.

All these years, I have had my share of betrayals, animosity (granted some are justified),mistrust and some just plain cruelty. I struggled to be as little involved as I could. Some with success, yet others seemed too hurtful to ignore.

I’d like to believe Ive come a long way from there. That is not to say it was an easy ride,though.

You see, in life, we are either too blessed with real friendships or cursed with the wrong people…people we have trusted to invite into our lives to begin with.

Unfortunately, just as Ive been blessed with my 4 best friends, i was also cursed with one im amused to call IVY .. (as in poison)…For the most part, she at least had the decency enough to mask herself as a FRIEND. but like most garbage, she was bound to stink up. AND stink up, she did! 

I spent a remarkable enough time consumed by her apparent obssession to deny me of peace. But in time, I flung her to my “never-again box” and gladly rarely thought of her since then.

I have learned that the people we choose to keep in our lives determine the kind of life we lead. Insisting on keeping garbage mirrors that exactly. And unless youre a pack rat, there is absolutely no value in loading up on dirt.

Having “my girls” in this life has outbalanced the evils IVY brought in my life. Having them helped me appreciate my blessings more than wallow in disgust for allowing IVY to corrupt me, if only for a while.

I finally have the last laugh!

Here’s to a garbage-free life! and to a life blessed with friendships!

SANTE!!!

Why do I smile when im bursting to scream? Why do I come up with smart assed responses a minute too late? Why do I relive the bitter past and neglect to remember the brighter ones?

In school days, I have been too often misunderstood, and labeled untrue. I fought the misconception not for the sake of self-preservation but because bone deep i knew i was farthest from that. But my young mind either didnt have the capacity to explain myself in sharper language, or I wasnt sure wether the misconceptions were actually true. 

So i pressed on and tried the hardest not just to disprove it, but to search my soul for the raw truth, because WHO WAS I IF I DIDNT EVEN KNOW MYSELF?There were moments I merely tried to change into the opposite of what they thought I was, if only to end the self-struggles. Yet of course changing oneself for the sake of pleasing others was never meant to work, and so it didnt.

And then I met my best friends, and all pretenses ended. With AGENS, I learned humility. With JOY i found courage, with JANET inspiration and with CHISEL self reliance…and with all of them together, i found ACCEPTANCE…

All five of us brought different spices into the friendship, and together we found truths about ourselves and each other…some good and some not so much…yet all together, somehow we complemented each other’s flaws and made up for each others’ weaknesses. All these years, its amazing to know, that never had we made our differences cut us apart, and instead, we somehow completed each other…

Were all grown now. All except JA had started our own families. We struggle to keep in touch in spite of the different time zones were in. Sometimes months go by without hearing from each other. Yet all five of us know and live the fact that no matter the distance, we all have each other to come home to….

I CANT drive longer than 3 hours.

I CANT dance.

I CANT speak spanish.

I CANT say no.

I CANT grow anything.

I CANT exercise and love it.

I CANT stay mad.

I CANT stitch.

There’s so much more im sure I CANNOT DO but today i make a promise if only to myself, that before my life is over I will learn to do at least half of my list.

When i was in High School, I met an extraordinary woman who has impacted my life in so many ways than she’d care to know. She taught English and Speech and was the moderator of the Communication Arts Club at SAA. She inspired me and a lot of others to not only reach for the highest star, but to continue searching for higher heavens even long after we’ve thought weve found it.

Of all the things ive learned, though, one thing stuck to my mind, and without my awareness, had been my guiding light through all my life. She said, BE THE BEST OF WHAT YOU ARE…and this i think has been the driving spirit in all my quests, and at the same time, my comforting words in a lot of my missed turns and regrets.

I wonder if she knows how much she has helped form the most basic of what I am? I wonder if she even realized how important she had become in my young life, and how much of a bigger influence in most of my adult life she is? I also sometimes wonder if at the same time she marked my life, did I also mark hers?

I would like to think that somehow she knows…

Becoz in all my years, there are only a few who has really “made a dent” in my life… And there are even fewer who have heard me say THANK YOU.

“It is 1997. Its been almost a year since I left home. Ive passed my NCLEX and am set to work at a cancer/onco unit in NCH (northwest community hospital). This year I also got married. And this year, mommy was diagnosed with colon cancer. I am swinging between two very opposite emotions, sometimes I dont even feel anything! Ive picked up smoking, with a vengeance. Yet even as im burning my lungs, still I dont feel anything. I drive off to wisconsin by myself and dont even realize im there till i hit the brakes and set the car to park. Loneliness is winning. Bernard takes pity and brings me to Hawaii. I sit in the sun, smoking, burning both my skin and my lungs. A week in honolulu does almost nothing to my damp spirits.

And then I get the dreaded phone call. Mom’s pain is over. MINE has just begun…

And for the next five years after that horrible day, I exist but never really lived. I, too have become a ghost. I look in the mirror and dont even know the face that stares back. I search my soul and find no answer to the endless sadness either. The whole world is moving on, im stuck in the middle. I attempt to re-capture the old self, with very little success. Im sure whichever part of hell I am, no one else has been to. And if that is so, then who in the world is going to come and save me? Better yet, do I even want to be saved from this curse?

God has truly left me. No tears come with that realization. Just a quiet despair and acceptance.

I have very few restful sleep. And when I actually do fall asleep, i am waking up screaming! Wait…is that a gray hair?…and wrinkles around my eyes? …When did that happen? My whole body is growing old with time…but my mind is still stuck in that one day I found out…Mommy is gone! Did all those years really pass me by?…

Realization doesnt come with a bang.or a lightning. not even a whisper. It comes like a bus at a stop…to someone who just spent a mere 15 minutes waiting and expecting it like clockwork.

It dawns on me, serenely. God didnt turn away. I did! I wasnt thrown in hell. I willfully walked to it. I embraced it. I wallowed in it. I didnt even fight it because i longed to be in HELL! Because it was easier to be desperate than to be hopeful. It was easier to give up than to fight. 

And just like that, I walked straight out of the deep end and embraced my old friend, my protector, my GOD!…

It didnt bring back my mom, but being embraced by God made the burden of accepting the loss so much more peaceful…and almost…heavenly.

It is 2007. Ive been around here for awhile now. Ive actually even made a life from the ashes I came from. Bernard has remained constant. And so has whatever was left of my family. I even now have two baby boys. Im still a nurse. Ive given up on Oncology, though and have shifted my interest to more saveable cases. Im a cardiac nurse. Amazingly enough, I am still me in the truest of meanings. Only, I have become a better me…

It is true then, that even from ashes and gunk and dirt, one can emerge a cleaner and more pure spirit, If one has GOD in his life…..

Everyday, i wish for different grandiose quests…things i guess i wished for in my past but have never really come true. One day its to pursue acting and theater, the next its to write a book, and then again sometimes i dream of even bigger things like set up funds for desperate orphaned kids…or build them a mansion where they never have to wonder where the next meal is coming from, or if there will even be a warm bed to sleep on that night…

My thoughts are sporadic. They flow erratically between self fulfillment and philantrophic visions. They bring me feelings of self loath and amazingly enough, sometimes, feelings of emptiness.

There are so much I wish I was capable of doing. So much I wish i could give. Is it even possible for one heart to feel all these? Ive spoken of regrets and things unfulfilled…and with all my heart I still believe that all these unfulfilled wishes do make up what I call ME. But admittedly, there are also moments when they truly drain me.

Sometimes i have this really morbid and weird feeling that im running out of time. That I would leave this world without even making a dent. ..

Ive always dreamt of the good life. Growing up as I did, even as a better life seemed too far fetched to imagine, deep in my bones, i knew I was going to move mountains to make something out of myself.

So I dreamt on, of things i thought made up “the” better life. Like a house by the beach, white picket fence, a red mercedes (any mercedes was going to do),three stories full of wardrobe (of course by the best designers my simple mind could make up), great travels, famous friends…and the list went on. Thoughts of things superficial seared through me. I was on fire. I knew the dangers my thoughts could bring! (like eternal damnation for worshipping that which was evil and shallow) but for a while there, i was consumed by them…

As i got older, my tastes started changing. Id like to think my ideas of better things begun morphing into more sophisticated and almost realistic ideas … I also started doubting wether i was actually going to live to see the day where all these came true.

And then the real life just slowly and frighteningly took over. I migrated to the states, re-united with my boyfriend of 2 yrs (who is now my husband) in chicago, begun working as a nurse, and actually started living my life…

Years later, here I am… living in my own house, but not anywhere on a beach, driving my own car, but not even close to a mercedes, very close friends, not with anybody you’d recognize on a billboard, but with the four most awesome people ive ever met in my entire life. I didnt compromise the designers but the rest seemed second best only to what ive always thought id settle for.

But looking back, in retrospect, what has really made me ecstatically happy , and still does, are the two most wonderful people who never even factored in to what i called THE good life…. The two people I brought into this world! the two people I would totally die for! GIAN AND SHAUN…the two most beautiful things in my world…

Unlike the more superficial things i dreamt of, and paid for either in cash or credit, MY SONS i paid for in blood and sweat!

Realizing i only came close to “the” better things in life does not bother me one bit anymore…knowing I have GIAN AND SHAUN means the whole world to me now. It is them whom I wake up for every single day. Having them in my life is worth more than a million sunrises and sunsets… worth more than all the rainbows put together, even all the red mercedes cars lined up together….

the meaning of things lies not on the things themselves, but on our reflections of them…

I have had the blessing to dream, and make most of them come true. I, too, have had the misfortune of dreaming too much and waking up to realize life does not hand you every single thing you crave for. That, too, is ok. What is not is continuing to change the course of life, with the singular quest of achieving that which is not meant to be.

In this life, we get what we can, and let go of what we cant grasp. To an idealist, i am now sounding pessimistic. to a realist, i am dead on correct. Afterall, I have been dealt with so many things unresolved and unchangeable in my short but meaningful 35 years, that to speak in this way is simply me talking in all nakedness and truism.

I have few regrets, but the few that i have i hold dear and sacred. Just because i have several unrealized dreams does not mean they must be a source of humiliation. To me, they are just particles of what makes me - me. For the longest time, they consumed me with searing fires. Now they just complement what i call ME. Because I have learned that both great things realized and those that were never, make up what we call LIFE.

I will continue to dream, continue to succeed in some, and undoubtfully fail in others. But I will not stop……