HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH!!

You have blessed me with good things and plenty
and surrounded my table with friends
their love and their laughter enrich me
together we sing your praise...


When I think of my friend Hannah, it makes me want to sing these lines from Dan Schutte's "All My Days".

I met her through my late boss and mentor Fr Niall O'Brien. Like Fr Niall, she too is a foreigner in love with anything Filipino. She speaks basic Tagalog and so proud of it! A videoke queen, she sings Tagalog classics like a pro! She loves adobo, lechon manok, tinolang bangus. She has an English-Ilonggo Bible, too. Her house has a little museum of all her precious Filipino collections from Philippine flag, to mugs, to statues. Name it, she just might have it! Her favorite hero? Jose Rizal. Her favorite saint? San Lorenzo Ruiz. She named her son Joseph Lorenzo.

Joseph's father is a Filipino hailing from the same town where Fr Niall lived and served for many years. Fr Niall's death brought us closer together as we grieved and reminisced beautiful memories we both were privileged to share with him. It is a gift we both are thankful for.

I am continually amazed at how many times she's helped me through the dark moments of my life, when she too, is struggling to make it through. In a lot of ways, she is a sister, a family who is there for me and with me, no matter the distance. I think God especially sent her to tell me how important and loved I am. Because that's how she makes me feel.

She's visited the Philippines a few times and each visit is never complete without coming to Bacolod to see us. As much as I want to share her photos here, I can't. Like me, she doesn't want to be photographed. hehe So instead I am sharing a photo-video I made for Joseph, for his birthday three week ago. This has made her cry a river already so I'm trying my best to avoid making this little tribute melodramatic.




Happy birthday, dear friend. Thank you for the gift of friendship. Thank you for spoiling me with books, chocolates, praises, encouragement, prayers, laughter, tears. Thank you for treasuring and loving Abe like your own son, it means so much to me. He will grow up loving Tita Hannah who not only spoils him, too, with books, toys and whatnot, but also draws sharks for him via webcam. It is not by chance that our paths had crossed, but by divine intervention as you call it.

Sometimes it is not easy to keep believing in the midst of tribulation, but with a friend like you, life becomes worth living.

ON LOVE

"You should never love somebody any more than love yourself, you should never give your whole world to anybody because when they go away they take everything." - J Reyes

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEBANG!

It's my sister Genevieve's (also popularly known sa Bebang to friends and family) birthday today. This blog is all about the things I am grateful for being her sister, as my way of honoring her.


She sacrificed two years in college just for me. Back then the three of us were in college, not to mention the two others in high school. Food on the table was more important than tuition fee. Our parents said only one can continue college. Bebang said if she stopped, she can look for jobs. I had to keep going because I had the chance to be the school paper editor and if I stopped, I was too shy to look for jobs. She had the chance to be cum laude. But she let it go, just for me. *sniff sniff!*


She joined beauty pageants to earn money for us. She would usually take home food from parties she attended to. One time she woke me up excited to show me my pasalubong, a pair of pearl earings. I didn't even smile because I was annoyed that she had to wake me up for it.

Once it was my birthday. She was broke so her birthday gift to me was she was my 'slave' for the whole day. She cooked, cleaned, washed my clothes.


When Reinee courted me at home for the first time, I went home to find her busy cleaning up. She was too excited for her younger sister's suitor that she even prepared a little snack for us. Sandiya. Nyahaha.


It was her who encouraged me to join activities in school, saying they would be good for me. I complied, on condition that we join together. Even in community activities we were both active, she, having found and lead a youth organization which became known in our place. Those activities have helped me, indeed, to get out of my shell and share myself to others.


I was too unresourceful, so lacking of confidence and guts, too dependent on her financially and who knows what else. But I never heard her complain even once, never did I feel that I was a burden to her, especially when we were in college and living independently from our parents. Instead, she was my number one fan, cheering me on every step of the way...up to this day.

That's inday. The 'most' in many ways.

Most kulit, most thoughtful, most drama queen, most resourceful, most isug, most tralala, most palakaon, most traidora....


Most faithful to God. The one thing that has blessed me in ways I cannot count.


Happy birthday!! mwah mwah mwah!! i lab u to me der to u por eber today ebreting olways. (iya na style)

My Gabriel turns three!!!

I wake up to pee and find something pinkish in my underwear. I go back to sit on our bed, I close my eyes and say a short prayer of abandonment. This is it. I'm giving birth. I wake hubby up who in an instant gets up and panick a little bit. I am calm though nervous with anticipation.

At the clinic, the contraction becomes more and more intense but still gives me time to breathe, smile and joke around. Until I am brought to delivery room. Forty-five minutes later, Gabriel comes out and cries his first, announcing the great joy that he brings along. It is a miracle. He is a miracle...


Today, my son turns three!!! Like I always do, I wear the very dress I wore when I had him. I bring out the home pregnancy kit that we used when we found out we're pregnant. (and show it to Abe who, in turn asks me curious questions about it) I bring my son with me to work just to make sure I spend the whole 24 hours with him, savoring the joy of being a mother and thanking God for making me deserving to be one. Just how I wish hubby was around to share this day with us.



















5:30 am, November 30, 2004. We're pregnant!!

In between contractions...
Because of hubby I was brave more than I had ever thought...




















Mother and son in action...



Tonight, as I put him to sleep, his prayer was a song that hushed all the stress of my busy life away. "Papa Jesus tenk yu gid kay gin gaan mo ko laptop (Nanay Dit's bday gift, a toy laptop), gin gaan mo kami higligdaan, tenk yu gid kay may nanay ko kag tatay, kag yaya.Tenk yu kay may kamot kami kg tiil kag may head. Tenk yu gid kay gin gaan mo kami food kag milk. Ay lab yu Papa Jesus.Happy birtday to me." (Papa Jesus, thank you so much for giving me laptop, you gave us bed to sleep on, thank you so much for giving me Mom and Dad and nanny. thank you because we have hands and feet and head.Thank you so much for giving us food and milk. I love you Papa Jesus. Happy birthday to me.)



Three years of being a parent. I'm praying for many more years to be blessed by it.


PS: We celebrated Abe's birthday last weekend to give his tatay a chance to be there, whose work schedule allow him to be home every other day. I share Abe's birthday photos only to friends in my multiply and friendster account.