God Knows Best

There are things that happen in one's life that often change you forever.   These can be things you take for granted, such as learning how to read or learning how to walk.  These can be happy and exciting things like falling in love, getting married, or having a new baby.  These can also involve sad and unexpected things like getting sick, being involved in an accident,  or losing a loved one.  

We lost Father a year ago today.  It was a Friday the 13th back in 2017.  As a result, Fridays have never been the same for me.   Nothing is the same.  

I have to accept that there is a new normal now.  

---o0o---

The other day I was looking at old videos and came across one that I'd seen many times before.  It was one with the three kids playing in the study room at Cebu Avenue.  The  kids had placed the cushions from our living room chairs on the floor and were running around playing "Following the Leader."   In this clip, RD was often frustrated because he kept running so fast that he'd end up at the tail, instead of being the leader.  GI and MyGirl just kept running happily at their own pace with MyGirl singing, "da leader, da leader..."  She was about 2 years old in this video and there were times she seemed at risk of being knocked down by one or both of her brothers.  You could hear the voice of Father in the background so you could tell he was nearby. 

In the past, watching the video, I wasn't looking for Father as I was focused on the kids.  When I viewed the video the other night, I was wishing so hard that I'd turned the camera just a bit to catch Father.  The video ran for over five minutes capturing the three kids in action and nobody else. Thankfully towards the end, I re-positioned myself to another spot and caught Father on camera.  There he was, sitting on a chair, watching the children.   

The very last shot was MyGirl tripping and Father reaching down to pick her up.  

It was good to see Father again, if only for those few seconds in the video. 

---o0o---

I came across this poem today.  It is true... God knows best.   We miss you everyday, Father.

God Knows Best

by Helen Steiner Rice

Our Father knows what's best for us

So why should we complain

We always want the sunshine

But He knows there must be rain

We love the sound of laughter

And the merriment of cheer

But our hearts would lose their tenderness

If we never shed a tear

Our Father tests us often

With suffering and with sorrow

He tests us, not to punish us

But to help us meet "tomorrow"

For growing trees are strengthened

When they withstand the storm

And the sharp cut of the chisel

Give the marble grace and form

God never hurts us needlessly

And he never wastes our pain

For every loss He sends to us

Is followed by rich gain

And when we count the blessings

That God has so freely sent

We will find no cause for murmuring 

And no time to lament

For our Father loves His children

And to Him all things are plain

So He never send us pleasure

When the soul's deep need is pain

So whenever we are troubled

And when everything goes wrong

It is just God working in us

To make our spirit's strong

Works of Art

I had seen the works of Simon Beck (snow) and Andres Amador (sand) on FaceBook and shared them on my page.   I find their artwork simply amazing.    [Click on the artist's names to see their work.]  

I wonder how these artists feel when their masterpieces are trampled over, covered, ruined, or washed away.  In spite the inevitability of destruction, they persevere and start anew.  They don't quit making works of art, they just keep on doing it.   They create because they love what they do and want to share this with the rest of the world.    They have a vision and they make it happen.  And while it there, it is perfect.

I guess that is the same way God feels about us.  Each of us is His work of art.  Each one created the way God planned.  And in spite our faults and failures, we are still loved.  

I don't know if it is because Lent is approaching, but I was reminded of this poem.   

MASTER WEAVER'S PLAN

My life is but a weaving
Between the Lord and me;
I may not choose the colors–
He knows what they should be.

For He can view the pattern
Upon the upper side
While I can see it only
On this, the under side.

Sometimes He weaves in sorrow,
Which seems so strange to me;
But I will trust His judgment
And work on faithfully.

‘Tis He who fills the shuttle,
And He knows what is best;
So I shall weave in earnest,
And leave to Him the rest.

Not ’til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needed
In the Weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.

~ Benjamin Malachi Franklin

Gibran : On Children

Christmas Day. One cannot help but think of children on Christmas Day.

We think of the child Jesus asleep in the manger. We think of our own children and the children of our family and friends. We think of the children on the streets who have no homes and possibly no gifts. We remember ourselves as children and recall the Christmases of our past.

For today, as a child myself, I remember my parents.

Mother had a poem taped inside one of her cabinets. She has had it for as long as I can remember. Reading this poem as a child is different from reading this poem as a parent. I should go and tape this poem on my own cabinet.

Merry Christmas.

ON CHILDREN

by Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Weathering the Weather

Weather

Author: unknown

Whether the weather be fine,
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold,
Or whether the weather be hot,
We'll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not!

I think we used to recite this poem. Or at the very least, we learned this poem when we were very young.

Growing up in a country where there were only two seasons -- dry and wet -- the weather was fairly predictable in spite the incompetence of our weather bureau. It was sunny most of the year but especially hot in the summer months (April, May and June). The rainy season came in July and August. The "ber" months signaled cooler weather as Christmas approached. If we were lucky, it would still be cool in January and February, only to bring more warmth in March as summer returned.

We have moved to a country where there are four seasons -- winter, spring, summer and fall -- and the Sydney Morning Herald Weather report is fairly accurate.

Summer -- December to February

Autumn -- March to May

Winter -- June to August

Spring -- September to November

Fortunately for me, it doesn't snow in winter here in New South Wales because even the chilly days of spring and autumn are enough to get me shivering.

As summer approaches, there are days when it gets so hot. Yesterday, they estimated that the temperature was highest at 41°C; today the expected high was 21°C.

I have yet to get used to these kind of weather swings. I am not complaining, mind you. I am quite happy for these sudden changes of weather, particularly when it goes from hot to cold because the sun out here can be quite harsh. (I think I have gone two shades darker since arriving here.) What eats me is the shift from sunny to rainy.

This sunny day to rainy day shift was particularly difficult for me when we were staying at my brother-in-law's place. Since theirs was a family of seven and ours a family of five, you can imagine the amount of laundry we generated in a week's time and the finite number of uniforms available for the children to wear. This required regular loads of wash to be done in a week.

Naturally I had to fit into our host family's laundry schedule. Mumoffive did their laundry on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. I could do the laundry on any of the other days of the week. Usually, I would do the laundry on Tuesday and either Friday or Sunday (or mini-batches on both days).

Since I had failed to do our wash one Friday, I needed to do at least one load of laundry that Sunday so that the kids would have clean uniforms for the coming week. It had been sunny all week but as luck would have it, the Sydney Morning Herald weather icon showed the sun hiding behind rain clouds that Sunday and the written report indicated that there would be a couple of rain showers in the morning and several in the late afternoon. The projected weather for Monday and Tuesday were both sunny but Monday was not my wash day and Tuesday would be too late.

What was I to do? I had to get those clothes clean.

What else could I do? I started off early Sunday with my first load. When it was done, I hung the clothes on the clothesline even if there was no sun.

Cloudy is not too bad as long as it does not rain, I thought.

While the washing machine was running the second load, it started to drizzle.

Shall I take the clothes out now?

Nah. The weather report did say a COUPLE of rain showers in the morning. Our clothes can take the drizzle.

The rain stopped for a while then resumed. It was still drizzling lightly when the washing machine beeped to indicate the completion of the second load, so I held off hanging the second set of clothes.

When the rain stopped, I decided that the rain shower quota had been fulfilled and the coast was clear. I hung the second set of clothes on the line even if I could see grey clouds all over.

Wrong move! After a few minutes, it started to rain again.

Shall I take the clothes out NOW?

Nah! The rain is bound to stop. This is already more than a COUPLE of showers. They must've put that sun in the weather report for a reason.

I held off retrieving the clothes for a while longer, hoping against hope that the sun would come out. Finally, when I decided that the clothes had had too much rain, I went out and started removing the clothes from the line.

While I was out there, as if to add insult to injury, the skies cleared and the sun came out.

ARRGGHHH!!!!

The sun didn't stay out for too long. It started to drizzle as I pulled off the last set of clothes from the line.

I decided enough is enough, these clothes are staying IN.

The rain clouds were gone by the early afternoon so I hung the clothes back and they eventually got dried. I pulled them off again before the late afternoon showers came.

(Perhaps the fickle weather had had enough fun with me for the day.)

As the poem goes, we'll weather the weather whatever the weather, whether we like it or not. But if you ask me, for rain falling on laundry days? NOT!

For today, it was the sun hiding behind the rain cloud again.

But guess what? I managed to save my laundry just in time.

The Dash

Corazon C. Aquino (25 January 1933 - 01 August 2009) is being laid to rest today.  Even in death, she is able to gather the Filipino nation together.

May her soul rest in peace.  She has gone a long way from a quiet housewife to becoming the first female president of the Philippines.  May what she and her husband Ninoy stood for remain strong within the Filipinos for many years to come.

I think Cory can be proud of her dash. 

THE DASH

by Linda Ellis

I read of a man who stood to speak

At the funeral of a friend.

He referred to the dates on her tombstone

From the beginning to the end.

He noted that first came her date of birth

And spoke the following date with tears

But he said what mattered most of all

Was the dash between those years.

For the dash represents all the imte

That she spent alive on Earth

And now only those who loved her

Know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not how much we own;

The cars, the house, the cash,

What matters is how we live and love 

And how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard,

Are there things you'd like to change?

For you never know how much time is left,

That can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough

To consider what's true and real

And always try to understand

The way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger,

And show appreciation more,

And love the people in our lives

Like we've never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect,

And more often wear a smile

Remembering that this special dash

Might only last a little while.

So, when your eulogy's being read

With your life's actions to rehash

Would you be proud of the things they say

About how you spent your dash?

Father's Day

It is a special day today. It is the birthday of someone very close to my heart.

It is Father's birthday.

I decided to post pictures of Father one would see around the house. These are really gifts given to him probably because it is difficult to give something to someone who seems to have everything. (Just tell us, Father, what it is you want. You know we will try our very best to give it to you if we can.)

Father is well-loved and deeply respected.

And by anyone's standards, he is quite successful.

Happy Birthday, Father! We love you.

Christ's Message

The message of Christ is a message of peace
For this to occur, the hatred must cease
One has to forgive, one has to forget
God knows it is hard, but this goal must be met.

The message of Christ is a message of love
He died on the cross then returned up above
He told us to love with all of our hearts
Our brothers and sisters should be where we start.

The message of Christ is a message of hope
Without it I guess, it would be hard to cope
We hope to reach Heaven when our work here is done
But ask yourself now, has your journey begun?

The message of Christ was given to all
It is up to each one to respond to his call
Many a chance we are given each day
Look at Christ's heart, it will show you the way.

Bee Happy

I've come a long way from Norman Rockwell. As of this writing, there are 150 blog posts for 2008 (that was 15 for each month starting in March) and 33 blog posts for 2009. Blog posts are not as long as Norman Rockwell anymore, but hopefully still as interesting. Tags are topped with 99 stories and 77 pictures. There are 41 blog posts on MyGirl, 40 on RD, and 35 on GI.

RD made me promise that the next blog post would be on him so that he would be tied with MyGirl at 41 blog posts. (RD is SO competitive, I swear. He gets that from his father.)

Anyway, in order to hit two birds with one stone (so to speak), I am posting another poem today. When he read the poem in Moving Furniture and Shuffling Papers, I mentioned that I had written a poem to announce HIS arrival. He made me promise to write about that.

This one is about RD even if it was written before he was born. I wrote this on a card we gave Father on his birthday many years ago. We went up to Baguio that year to celebrate his birthday. On the way up, we stopped by the gas station so many times and I took advantage of each and every one, it wasn't funny anymore.

This one is for RD. (I love you, baby.)

23 May 1997

Dearest Father (aka Lolo G),

The time has come to let you know
All the bathroom stops were not a show
No need to worry, no need to doubt
Let us tell you what it's all about...
It may come as a surprise to you
But in less than eight months,
You'll have apo #2.

Happy Birthday!!!

Love,
Angels4Kids and MacGyver
"Kuya" GI

Slash-M signed on the card, too.
"Love you Father."

The Hallmark card said "BEE HAPPY ... IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY."

Moving Furniture and Shuffling Papers

I woke up early this morning to find Mother moving the Lazy Boy from the study room to the living room.

"Mother," I said, "you're moving furniture again."

"I have to," she replied, "or I'll get sick."

(Yes, we have come to accept the fact that nothing is permanent in this world and ever more so in this house.)

I helped her get one of the Lazy Boys through. She refused to allow me to help her with the other one possibly because she would have felt bad asking me to move them back to the study room should things turn out in that direction.

She literally shooed me away.

"Off with you!"

So off I went.

I went to the room where Mother kept the cookbooks. I was looking for the book which was a compilation of recipes from Mother's Alma Mater. Mother was the one who had the book published so I was sure we had copies of that book somewhere.

I saw Mother walk by.

"Mom, where is the St. Scholastica's cookbook?"

"Oh, I just brought them down twenty minutes ago."

(I should have known. Murphy always knows when to strike.)

"But it is really worth going through papers," Mother announced as she entered the room, "look what I found."

She seemed quite excited over her discovery. She pulled out a sheet of bond paper from a brown envelope.

I took one look at it and my heart skipped a beat.

She found it!

She found a copy of the poem I had written for them more than eight years ago. I thought it was lost forever since my i-manila mailbox has crashed many times over. I had searched for copies of the poem or even drafts on paper over the years, but found none... until today, that is.

27 September 2000

From: angels4kids

To: Family Friend in the US

Subject : For Father and Mother From angels4kids

It Seems ...

It seems these days my pants don't fit

You think I've had too much to eat?

Well I've packed them up and put them away

To be worn again on some future day.

It seems these days I'm gaining weight

Could be all the food I've put on my plate

But nobody minds and neither do I

As long as I eat more fruits than pie.

It seems these days I feel as though

I've swallowed some butterflies, a hundred or so

There's often a flutter, a wave or a movement

I feel in my tummy for more than a moment.

It seems these days we're all getting older

But as months pass us by, another gets closer

Just think of the month when your two boys came out

Well that is the month I am talking about

It seems these days we all want good news

And this gives me my chance, my perfect excuse

To say aside from the fact that all is well

In a few months we'll all have little Gabriel/le.

Father and Mother were in the States that year. Father was undergoing some medical treatment and Mother had accompanied him. They stayed at the house of family friends, who lived near the hospital. I had written the poem to announce the arrival of MyGirl. It was easy to hide the fact that I was pregnant when they couldn't see me, but as they were scheduled to return soon, I wanted to prepare them with this message.

Needless to say, they were happily surprised.

(I had almost forgotten that MyGirl was due to arrive in February. She was born on the last week of January. Thank you, Mother, for shuffling papers today. May you find more treasures along the way.)