So you wanna talk about love?

Is that romance I smell in the air, stirring strong romantical emotions in lovers, and inciting rage in the perpetually single? Ahhh February 14, I thought it was you!   Like it or not, capitalists have declared February as the love month in honor of the feast of St. Valentine. And however different Valentine's Day celebrations have evolved into from what St. Valentine had originally done for the Roman soldiers and their loved ones,  the core sentiment is the same. Love. Everyone has the right to love and be loved.

As I was thinking more about the subject matter of love and romance, the idea of beautiful people came to mind. As if love, romance, and beauty always went together. Perhaps it's because romance seems more romantic when beautiful people are involved.

I just love looking at good-looking couples. You know, the ones who were blessed by God at birth with good looks - dimples, red lips, and big round eyes. I just can't keep my eyes off them. There is just something so magnetic about them - their perfectly symmetrical faces, their silky smooth skin, their blindingly white teeth, and all the other physical traits society has deemed ideal.

As I peruse my Facebook news feed, you know that thing we always check a hundred times a day, I see pictures of friends and semi-friends with their equally aesthetically-blessed partners. Birds of the same feather... People tend to stick with other people who are in the same beauty zone. Go ahead. Check your friends on Facebook, see who they hang out with. You know I'm right. But of course there's always that odd one out, that person that simply stands out because somehow he or she doesn't belong.

A few years ago, I attended a friend's wedding. She glowed as she walked down the aisle, wearing a beautifully crafted lace gown. She was radiant wearing just the appropriate amount of makeup. Her groom looked ever so dapper in his black suit and striped gray bow tie. I, and the rest of the guests must have had one thing in mind - they truly belong together. They were the picture perfect couple, and for a second I actually believed in happily ever afters.

But after the wedding, we went home and real life suddenly caught up with us, and then I began to re-realize that life is no fairy tale. Even for beautiful people. After a few years (or a few months) the romance starts to fade. This is the rule, not the exception. Novelty is what excites us, and when that "something new" becomes "something old", the excitement disappears.

No amount of beauty can hold a man's attention for more than, say, two years. With some men, even less than that. It is now up to us to sustain that excitement, that Blue Lagoon type of feeling. And if we ever survive that post-romance period, then we know that what we have is more than romance. It's love.

Love. Curious that it means zero in tennis. But love is a beautiful thing. Two people in love don't care about the world and how the world sees them. I am beautiful to my husband's eyes, and he is perfect in mine. When we love we see past the physical. This, I truly believe. We may be drawn to people because of how they look, but can they hold our attention?

True beauty lies within. This is no BS. A smart, confident woman is far more attractive than a gorgeous woman with no substance. There's just no contest. And if by chance a smart woman falls for a superficial prick, then she wasn't that smart to begin with.

Can't Wait

When my nephew left for Guam in October 2012, I felt like I lost a limb. He was so much a part of our daily lives, that not having him around felt like I had been transported to an alternate universe filled with nothing but eerie silence. Gone was the tiny voice asking if it could have McDonald's chicken nuggets for dinner. There were no more tiny hands, tugging at my mother's blouse, coaxing her to buy a "medium-sized" Lego. His absence hit all of us hard. Especially my father. My nephew was his favorite person. He could do no wrong in my father's eyes. He missed his kakulitan, his watching the same movies over and over, his singing the same songs over and over, and eating the same food over and over. I cannot really speak for my brother, for he knows how to hide his pain. But I know he would move heaven and earth to get him back, if that's what's best for him.

Recently, thanks to Viber, my nephew has been calling us a lot. Now we know he's okay, so we're all happy with that. When it comes to children, adults have to put everything on the back burner - our pride, anger, resentment, and everything else that weighs us down. It's the children that matter. Their happiness, safety, and well-being.

In August we will all travel to Guam to see my nephew. I wish the clock would tick a bit faster. We love and miss you, Yeshua. See you very soon.

Happy birthday, Daddy

My dad, and the three chefs haha. My brother and his friends were thoughtful enough to cook lunch for us.



My brother Jun, Myq and Budoy



Mom and my sister Grace



My brother's girlfriend Anne and Myqee

It's always great to spend with family, and the fact that we don't get to do it often makes me appreciate moments like these even more.

You can rest now, Tito Edward

My uncle died today. He was the youngest among my father's siblings. He was a proud Thomasian, and a very talented one, too. He studied Fine Arts in college,  and I can still remember his drawing pads filled with portraits of different Hollywood stars.

I am deeply saddened by his death, although I know that now he doesn't have to suffer anymore. He was in so much pain, since the cancer had already spread to his bones. But he bore his pain with so much grace and dignity.

When I saw him last March, he was always in high spirits. He never uttered anything negative about his illness, or about anyone. He was happy in the company of his favorite teleserye characters, the ones that he would watch on ABS-CBN's The Filipino Channel.

On Sundays we would drive to church, as he still insisted on going, even though he knew God would understand his absence. Every week, a deacon from St. Christopher's Church, his parish, would go to his house to give him communion. God bless that deacon; his rewards are waiting for him in heaven.

I consider myself lucky, having had the chance to spend three weeks with him just this summer. I am sure he had a smile on his lips when he found out for certain that he was finally going to meet his Maker.

I remember sitting at the dining table with him when he said to me, "Who doesn't want to live? I still want to live. But if I die now, I would consider death the greatest blessing from God."

What She Found in His Wallet

It was an ordinary day. I was sitting in front of my laptop, tweaking my manuscript, making it publish-worthy. There was very little writing being done, more self-critiquing and deleting of words, a hundred at a time.

It was after lunch when my phone rang. My friend's frantic voice told me her father had been found on the couch, unconscious. He had been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, and that she was headed there with her younger brother.

Less than an hour later, we were all gathered in the hospital's emergency room. My friend was crying. Her father had died of a heart attack. His third. Her elder brother had rushed to go home to retrieve their father's wallet. It contained his senior citizen's card, which entitled him to a 20% discount at the hospital.

My friend's brother arrived moments later, eyes bloodshot, hair disheveled. He handed her  a tan leather wallet, the very same one my friend had bought in Florence the year before. She cried, as she held the wallet close to her. Her father loved her, and she knew it.

The wallet contained some paper bills and plastic cards. A typical wallet, if you ask me. My friend immediately looked for the senior citizen's card. She found more than what she was looking for.

My friend found herself staring back at her. Tucked in one of the wallet's compartments were pictures of her and her siblings.  Her father loved them, and they knew it. She cried again, this time comforted by her father's love. I cried with her, because I had been witness to that love.

Death

From time to time I am compelled to write about death. I don't know, but there are times when I just feel that I have to discuss it at length, either with myself or with friends. There are things that happen in our lives that jolt us, making us think of our inevitable demise. In two weeks I went to three wakes and two funerals. In March my friends (sisters) lost their father to cancer. And in between the deaths of the people connected to me, there were also deaths of people I didn't know.
As a Facebook shout out, I posted about a week ago, that I realized how immaterial material possessions were; that people remember a dead loved one's big heart, rather than his big bank account; that we touch people through kindness, and not by showering them with gifts. It wasn't much of a eureka type of realization. It was something I had known all along. But like everyone else, I forget such things in the comfort of stillness; when the calm waters of life make us forget that at anytime strong currents could come and topple us. This blog entry will be short, as life is short. I pray that I never take for granted that I still wake up in the morning and breathe a deep and satisfying breath.