“Ba-ay kubo ka-it munti, ang alaman duun ay sari-sari~”
My two-year-old nephew, Manman, sang to me his version of the Bahay Kubo song (a popular Filipino children’s song) over the phone yesterday!
T’was like being serenaded by an angel! It so balmed my heart, especially when he punctuated his singing with “I love you, Tita!” Three times!
That’s definitely one memorable phone call!
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Hi friends. For the second time, please allow me to post in this site a piece that was not written by me. It’s inspiring, and I thought you’d love to read it. It’s from Spiritual Short Stories.
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Here we go.
Spiritual Story by Unknown
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A young woman went to her grandmother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one would pop up.
Her grandmother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire, and soon the pots came to boil. In the first pot she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil; without saying a word. In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.
Turning to her granddaughter, she asked, “Tell me what you see.”
“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied. Her grandmother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The grandmother then asked the granddaughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg. Finally, the grandmother asked the granddaughter to sip the coffee. The granddaughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma then asked,
“What does it mean, grandmother?”
Her grandmother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.
“Which are you?” she asked her granddaughter.
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There are times when Time and Change team up to trick us. Instead of its usual slow pace, Change would come to us so drastically and without warning. This it does while Time sneaks up on us. Before we know it, Change has descended all too suddenly and has imposed itself upon us, upsetting the order of our life and its weight sending us struggling to regain balance.
We generally don’t like drastic changes because they often catch us unprepared and cause us severe discomfort. But drastic changes, especially those produced by split-second moments and which we have not seen coming, are often the most meaningful and have the greatest impact on us. Take sudden death of a loved one. Or sudden change in our environment. Or in our lifestyle. Or even as simple as in our schedule.
In the past months, drastic change too descended upon me. But it was not the kind of change that Fate throws upon an unsuspecting soul. In fact, Fate did not have a hand in it at all. Or perhaps it did, albeit indirectly, by giving me the inspiration and good reasons to employ change. But the work, it was all my doing. I contemplated on inviting, and making way, for change. I prepared myself for it. And I willed it to happen.
In the past three months, I endeavored to change some of my decades-old habits and perceived limitations. It was difficult and I wasn’t sure I’d succeed. Like vice, established behavior is never easy, well nigh impossible, to change. But I succeeded.
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Motherhood naturally develops in a woman a nurturing instinct that continues even after her baby has been born and the umbilical cord that binds mother and child together has been cut. This nurturing instinct is perhaps what enables her to love her child unconditionally.
In real-life as well as in fiction, we know of mothers who go to great lengths to protect and provide for their children. For a mother, there is no sacrifice too great for her to do to ensure the wellbeing of her family. She would gladly give her life if it would save her children from harm.
The kind of love only a mother is capable of giving continually awes sons and daughters throughout generations. It inspires them to admire, love, respect, and honor the gentle soul they call Mother. And so tributes for mothers abound—songs that thug at the heart, words that underscore the pureness of a mother’s love, and artworks that celebrate motherhood.
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Lodged in the darkened room
I turn to the lone window
And patiently wait for its hinges
To open its shutters
Wide —
Like arms welcoming back
A returning loved one.
Oh! The things I would do
When I’m finally out of this cage —
I would bask in the burst of light
And feel the sun’s warmth upon my face
I would listen to the fresh air
Whisper in my ears some new dreams
As new pursuits challenge
My fatigued feet
To journey once again.
And I would greet the morning
As I wave back to the rustling leaves
And promise the sky that I would
Again be soaring its vastness.
Oh, how could I have managed
To not do all these, having chosen instead
To lay alone in utter helplessness?
Dear me! I must walk to the door
And turn its knob.
It would open, of course,
Because it was never locked.
The bolt has always been within my reach;
It was never outside.
And the key has always dangled
In the deep recesses of my heart.
//Sherma E. Benosa
26 June 2009. 7:58AM
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As my way of bidding goodbye to 2009 and welcoming 2010 and its infinite possibilities — with the kind of hope that can never be extinguished by painful circumstances — allow me to post some of my selected Status shoutouts in FaceBook since I became active in April. Let it be my humble way of thanking you for sharing with me your time and friendship. For, despite the challenges that came our way as a nation, the past year had been rife with lessons, opportunities, and blessings. Thank you for the good times, the opportunity to appreciate life with you, the friendship.
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I am chasing words. Where have they gone?
I think I’ve become my dad’s pen name: Tawatao (Wanderer)
I think I have an avid stalker by the name of Virtuelle Friend. He’s tailing my every move. Oh my, I guess I oughtta behave. Properly.
I am stalking my stalker; my captive who wants to believe he is the captor. haha!
One of the best moments of my life is when I can be my child self, free of all the inhibitions and worries of my adult self. It’s when I know other adults must be laughing at what I’m doing, or for doing what I am doing (at my age), and not caring one bit.
By virtue of the power vested in me by my crazy-trippin’ self, I declare today a real V-day! No thinking about work, reading up for class, letting anything/anyone stress me up, nor complaining that FB forces me to shorten my shoutouts. I’ll just concentrate on pestering my Sweetie.
“Almost” followed by a positive word is such a sad phrasal construction. Though it suggests “close to being,” it still means “not quite.” (—SEB, June 28, 2009 while traveling to Baler)
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A line in the novel “Whirlwind” by James Clavell reads: “You’re not dead until you’re dead.”
In my life, there have been moments when I had thought things were lost that I was already bracing myself for an imminent failure and planning on how to get back up. And then someone would come along — often in the nick of time — who would unceremoniously save me from my predicament. Immediately afterwards, things would return to normal as if the crisis I’d just been through was simply imagined.
What’s so amazing is that, in many instances, my saviors were complete strangers — people whose existence I was unaware of until that very moment when I badly needed them. They would come unannounced to snatch me from sure failure. Or even death. It’s as if they materialized out of nowhere just to fulfill one singular, fate-defying (or is it fate-defining?) act in my life: and that is to save me, or to ensure that I would not fail. Imagine those moments when some hand suddenly pulls you to safety before you get hit by a speeding vehicle; or those instances when you’d have drowned had someone didn’t see you and came to rescue you in time. Think of all those whom you barely know who just happened to be at the right place at the right time when you desperately needed someone — anyone — to help you. That they were there when you needed them to be there is amazing; that they would actually extend you a helping hand is nothing short of astounding. That they would do it without question… now, that’s incredible.
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