A Different View of Christmas

The year 2008 has been rough for me. It signified many losses and goodbyes, and the decision to forget the past and press on to the new challenges of the present moment. Because my children did not anymore want to go back in Mindanao, I decided to stay with them. Literally, I left all my possessions in Mindanao, including the last money I had which was in different hands for the copra business. Mindanao is more than a thousand miles away from where we are living now.

Early this year, I invested the savings I had the other year to a community-oriented business with the objective of continuously helping the people I once served when I was with the non-profit cause-oriented organization. The capital had significantly increased in just a couple of months despite all the pressures from the big traders, until I noticed that the capital was diminishing. I gave them several chances but their “needs” became more important for them than my trust.

In short, I nearly lost all my hard-earned savings for trying to help people. Still adjusting to the change in environment, I had no other option but to accept the fact that I would be starting from scratch. After all, I have been used to treating all things as temporary. Though all my possessions were gone, at least, I lost them on good purpose. Of course I also had low moments after what happened, but I was quick to rise so as not to miss the opportunities that might be passing.

I believe that I am always in the right place at the right time. “There is something for me here,” I always tell myself. What I want will be, and what I want is to have more time with my children while writing and earning. I assessed what I had and realized that the most valuable possession I had at that moment was my old CPU. I left the monitor and printer in Mindanao because I could not carry more than 20 kilos for the trip back home. And if I had the monitor and printer, it would still be difficult to regain lost customers (we had a computer business for more than 5 years but when I relocated in Mindanao, all customers also “relocated” to other computer shops).

Time has indeed changed. I thought then that I had to adjust. The computer I had years ago is not the same computer that I have now. Its purpose and uses have changed and I need to know how to adapt to the change. Then the bulb flashed at the top of my head, I went to a computer shop and rented for hours looking for work-at-home jobs. It took me days searching the web until I found a home-based customer service support. I did not land on that job because I had no VOIP but I was able to set up a computer system with a DSL connection, thanks to my ex-husband who gave me his old 17-inch CRT monitor.

It took me another month to find an outsourcing site that provides a lot of work for home-based workers. It connected me to a lot of buyers from the different parts of the world and each of them has taught me new lessons that I would not be able to learn if I were on my own. I have discovered the new use of the computer and I have unleashed an old passion which is writing.

We can all surpass the challenges in our lives if we believe in ourselves. Failures, poverty, economic crisis, big traders, big landlords, and all woes in life must not prevent us from moving on. It is not a crisis-mas, it is Christmas! It is the best season of the year no matter what. You have the power to choose to be happy just like all the children who always choose to be happy every Christmas despite all odds. When you do, your happiness will give back what your heart truly desires.

Merry Christmas! May good health, peace and plenty be yours for the new year 2009!

The Water Speaks, I Try to Listen

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. How tough am I? What would keep me going? Where am I going? When do tough times stop being tough?

All of us go through this stage at every point in our lives. I myself have gone to different ebbs and flows, and even if I've been there, I still find another low point sometimes unbearable. I still cry when I feel hopeless; doubtful when I feel time is going on forever; emotional when I feel God is nowhere.

Today, this is where I am. It has been this way for quite a long time. Does affirmation and positive thoughts do not anymore work? When will the water down under find its way on the surface so that everyone who drinks it taste the best of what stored energy can offer?

I am life. I am the living water living in the far away desert. I give comfort to thirsty travelers. I am refreshing. I am cool. I am pure. I am hidden.

Am I lost in my very own world? Has everything changed and become unfamiliar? Has my absence made you change your course and forget me? This is where you were some time ago. This is where I dipped my hands to gather and drink you. Where are you now, oh living water? I am tired from a long journey and the road still seems endless and rough. I am alone in the cold dark nights, and still alone in the scorching heat of the One Great Light.


I am Life. I am revealed to those who have the eyes to penetrate the unseen. I have not left you. I changed, yes, but only because you have changed also. You have come this far and I have come this far. When you progress, I also progress. When you fall, I also fall. When you rise after learning the lesson, I also rise and learned the lesson. We are one and you cannot be alone. Search and you will find me. Take away the cobwebs of doubts and fears, and you will see me.

I don't seem to hear you now. The whirling and splashing are gone. The more I hear your silence, the more I feel so sad.

I am now the Silence. You can only hear me through silence. I have been transformed into Serenity when you took the Great Journey in solitude. I admire your courage to go alone as the Great Journey can only be traversed alone.

Single Parenting - Revealing the Authority Figure

Growing up in an environment full of authority figures creates experiences that may put more harm than good things for the children. Ordering the children to do this and that, and don't do this and that is one example of how authority figures tend to manipulate the young minds.

Parents and all adults in the house who think that they are more knowledgeable and more experienced than the children are providing argument that is rapidly becoming obsolete. Age and education do not always provide the best measurement to gauge one's intelligence and wisdom. As more and more intelligent if not fully gifted children are born every day, grown-ups are often lost for the best reason to stop whatever "unlikely thing" a child is doing. Of course, an unlikely thing for an adult is usually the best thing for a child.

Many parents would like to see their children excel in school. In their excitement to raise highly intelligent children, they choose the best and often expensive school, hire tutors or exert additional time teaching their children. They do everything to be proud of their children.

However, most parents only think of intelligence in the academic sense. Marks and grades have become their way of measuring the children's development. If they are not performing according to the standards of the parents (which are usually the standards of the school and the teachers), the children receive unkindly remarks or even punishment. The children are compared openly with siblings, relatives or other children. If the other child is performing well than the other, the latter receive more scolding. Parents usually defend their arguments by saying they are only after the good of their children.

The negative words parents say to their children only belittle them and make them feel inferior. Growing up, they would find it difficult to build themselves and trust people, try new things and face challenges of the ever changing world. Any loving parent would not want this.

If the child is not performing well in school, there is definitely something that a responsible loving parent should try to know about the child. The child maybe experiencing trauma from school or from the immediate environment; feeling some pain or any form of sickness; having more fun with non-academic activities such as sports; or maybe too active to withstand formal schooling. Whatever the reason is, the parent has to understand and support the child in whatever way possible. Some tips on this will be shared in the next article.

Single Parenting - The First Lesson on Acceptance

As the number of broken marriages and pregnancies out of wed lock increases, the number of single parents also increases. At first, these events seem to prove how life can be so unfair. While the separation hurts both the couple, one would claim more pain than the other. The self-thought pain then produces hatred that directly or indirectly reverberates to the children. The extent of psychological impact to the parent is passed to the children who are so fragile and easily absorbs whatever their environment presents them. If anger, anxiety and fear would not be transformed positively, the children suffer the consequences until they themselves learn to take charge of their lives. The parent, who is supposed to be guiding the children, also suffers unless he or she looks at life and its circumstances positively.

Everyday, we are confronted with several circumstances and choices. Sometimes, the things that we choose offer excitement and very temporary happiness that we forget these things have consequences we would have to deal in the immediate or distant future. Let us take for example the sexual relationship we choose. Many unwanted and unplanned pregnancies have been the result of this type of relationship. While the freedom to engage in sex would initially send thrill to the partners, the new life produced out of this union would suddenly change the initial excitement to anxieties.

The same is true with marital relationship. Once the honeymoon stage is over, couple wakes up with a lot of complains, financial worries, attitude problem and incompatibility, and a lot more issues. The situation becomes unbearable until one initiates to leave. Each of these break ups produces single parent that decides to choose the responsibility and challenge of rearing the innocent children.

Accepting Things as They Are

All things do not last. Happiness ends to welcome grief; but sadness does end, too, to welcome new form of joy. This is one important universal law that all of us must master. When a door closes, several new doors open and present unlimited windows of new and better opportunities. All the pains that we experience carry with it a seed of greater happiness and blessings in disguise. By focusing on happiness instead of the pain, the latter quickly disappears and gives birth to the desired happiness. The sufferings we experience are prolonged because we choose to delve on it by thinking so much of it. To accept things as they are in the fastest way possible results to a calm state of mind that allows us to make better decisions and timely grabs the passing opportunities and circumstances in life.

Enjoy life in its fullest. There is only the PRESENT MOMENT to experience it.

Gian Healed A Healer’s Heart

On Mothers’ Day, a text message of how events transformed me into another mother reached all my mother-friends and relatives. They received these words:

“I fully realized today that long before the child is born, s/he had been destined to a mother even if she can’t bear the child. I’m glad to share with you my joy after finding my fourth child, now ten months old, whose soul consistently knocked at my door and took me months to recognize.”
Some texted back with the question, “You had adoption?” Many sent back messages fit for the Mothers’ Day occasion. A number quietly wondered what came into my mind and made that conclusion.

Gian shall stay with his father and immediate relatives. Though my desire is to be with him together with my three biological children, respecting the decision of his guardians is the most wonderful.

A few days after that brave revelation, I left for Cavite as earlier planned. Never telling anybody of the departure, I felt Gian sensed another pain of being abandoned. When I dropped by their house before leaving, he was terribly crying. His grandmother took him from his father and let me hold him; but Gian’s cry became louder and stronger. Softly running my right hand on his crown, I silently gave him my blessing and promised that I will come back.

Upon my arrival at home, the folks immediately confronted me on the Mothers’ Day text message. They demanded me to explain at once but I got the cue after dinner. It was a disappointing conversation. No one approved of my story. Everyone was so negative – what if he grew to be a criminal; what if he was a headache; what if your children didn’t understand; how could you take care of another child when you couldn’t care enough for three hyperactive children? People are indeed full of worries of things that are not yet there.

However, in the heat of my defenses, there was a sudden feeling of great relief. They heard me talking differently, expressing deep gratitude to a person who had caused tremendous pain in me. The folks, in deep surprise, heard me clearly expressing appreciation to a person the kids call “Tita Salve.”

It just happened. No idea. No realization yet. In fact, last Sunday, when I was told that Dian fetched the children, I replied with a message with a mild sarcasm, “So they are celebrating Mothers’ Day without me.” This thought was confirmed when the kids said that they were at their Tita Salve’s birthday.

The folks told me that the kids’ Tita Salve was giving the children this and that; that the kids used to sleep at her place where their father is also staying. These things are not beyond my knowledge though. The children have told me these a number of times. Only that, upon hearing these things this time, I found myself reacting calmly, saying only, “Oh, that’s good. You must be thankful, guys.”

Wow! What a heart! After five years, I finally found myself fully healed. There was synchronicity. There was magic that took place again.

Going back, I remember myself saying that there are no co-incidence; that everything is planned; that the meeting is as important as leaving; that every tear carries a lesson to learn; that we are always in proper place at the proper time; that people appear on our path to help us in our travel; that there are “good” people who will give us a lift and seemingly “bad” people and events that will give us pain yet will also build our muscles to reach the mountaintop.
When I decided to let go of Tala, I have learned how to respect my son’s decision; I have learned how to be detached yet near to give my light. When I was told that he was staying at her Tita Salve’s place, I felt a pang in my heart but did not blame him. When asked why he did not tell me, Tala just simply said he doesn’t want to hurt me.

Now, I realized that though I was not with him in that seemingly forever one year, someone has taken my place to take care of him. She may not be the type of person I would like to take care of my son, but the Universe has sent her to do the task, and I could only be grateful for that.
As a healer, I have sent a lot of healing energy to her through the power of forgiveness.

However, this had not been enough because every time the kids would tell me something about their day with her, I still felt the pain. Though I have achieved a certain level of spiritual maturity by the wisdom of silence, still, deep in my heart, it hurt.

Then Gian healed my heart. He taught me that people are destined to meet on specific purpose. When his mother abandoned him, I was able to fill that emptiness. When I am away with my children, there are always people taking care of my children. Only that, when someone I didn’t like took care of them, I forgot the essence of how the Universe provides me with the support that I ask from it. The Universe is always right, only that, the bitter heart is blind.

Finding Gian

Nang Delia wanted to sell her piglet again. She could not wait for the piglet to grow because her grandson was very ill. They needed to bring him to the city hospital for treatment. She consulted a neighbor if I would be interested in buying the piglet. Maybe she had heard about my complaint of not gaining anything from buying piglets, so she was hesitant to approach me again.

After a month, I met the baby’s father, Nang Delia’s son, after Manong took him to assist in drying the copra. He was quiet all those time that he worked. He never complained nor demanded immediate payment, but my sense of fairness gave him what I thought I owed him without waiting for another day to pass.

Another month passed. The copra business was not doing as was thought it would be. There was a shift in strategy and a shift in the location of the buying station. The small house that served as stockroom for the copra then kept the last stock. The stock would be delivered the next day, the moisture content was still high and had to be dried under the heat of the sun. I thought of hiring the labor services of the baby’s father.

He was there playing with his baby, the baby who knocked at the door of my heart for help when he was ill. So he was fine after that scary threat of dengue. When the baby’s mother came, his father went on to spread the copra as I requested.

The baby glanced at me on two isolated occasions several months thereafter. The longest moment of his presence was during a dark evening at the coast. Her mother was then bidding farewell to her former employer who owns the place I happened to build my house.
Two weeks later, her mother was bidding another farewell, this time to her one and only baby son. Secretly, she took the trails leading her to her parents, trails she hoped her son would never trace.

Traces of sadness marked his father’s face. Maybe it was really difficult to work on a twelve-hour night shift in a plywood manufacturing plant; or maybe it was the loss of his wife. Whichever, he left his work that provided the basic needs of his family.
For the second time, the baby knocked at the door of my heart, this time through his father who has summoned the courage within him to talk to me. He asked if he could be accommodated again in my business, but since I shifted strategy, I told him I didn’t have any need. And so for the second time, I denied the baby the help he was seeking from me.

However, something unusual happened. When his father was about to leave, he asked for a glass of water. Whatever came to his mind, I don’t know. He could just go home and drink there; or turn the faucet outside and drink from his hand; but something told him to ask for water.
There in the bin was the cup that trained all my three children to drink. When every mother would waste time and energy sterilizing feeding bottles, I would simply wash the cup just like any other dishes. The cup is now yellowish and with lots of scratches after serving three children in seven years. The transparent Disney cup with Mickey Mouse as character and two handles specifically designed for two little hands of a baby, managed to slip through our baggage when the kids and I relocated in Mindanao.

The cup remained in the box of the Tupperware set that I never used since I bought them. Three months ago, I cleaned the stockroom and all the stuff in there, and that was how I found the cup.

As if really meant for someone, the cup escaped being given away when I decided to let go of the many stuff clogging the dish bin. Until that night when the baby’s father asked for a glass of water…

The water in the “banga” (an earthenware) was cool and refreshing. The spring water that s transferred here becomes literally the “water of life” that energizes the entire family all these time. As the water was flowing to fill the cup, a voice was already making impression. After he drank the water, I told myself I would give that cup to his son.

Twice the father carrying his son passed by but the cup remained in the bin. The silent voice speaking was still unheard until St. Isidore Labrador interfered. It was Monday morning, three days after his father visited me. I looked at the calendar that has St. Isidore’s picture and checked the gospel for that day, May 5, 2008 . It was from John 16:29-33. “Oh, from John again…,” I told myself. I have read long chapters from John because the entire month of April almost took the daily gospel from John. Nevertheless, the voice told me to open the Bible and read. Then, a mistake occurred. Instead of reading verse 29, my eyes got focused on verse 16 with subtitle “Magiging Kagalakan ang Kalungkutan.” Onward, I read until I reached verse 21:

“Kapag nagdaramdam na ang isang babaeng manganganak, siya’y nahahapis, sapagkat dumating na ang oras ng kanyang paghihirap. Ngunit pagkapanganak, hindi na niya naaalala ang hirap: siya’y nagagalak dahil sa ipinanganak na sa sanlibutan ang isang sanggol.”

Thinking that was the gospel for that day, I closed the Bible reflecting on the verse. The rush of thoughts pushed me to get my meditation notebook and write. I wished I would be pregnant again and experiment on bearing and rearing a child applying my spiritual lessons. No, that would need a great deal of time to manifest since the annulment of the marriage formally separated Dian and I.

Writing these thoughts made me open the Bible again to be precise on the verses. It was then that I realized I read the wrong verses.

That kept me thinking and reflecting while facilitating the copra delivery that day. The though of the baby grew stronger and signs started to appear as if collaborating with my reflection. I turned back the pages of the Meditation and Dream Notes until I reached the entry dated October 12, 2004 . The entry described of a very vivid dream of me having a baby born without labor pains; of Dian asking where the baby was after a second degree cousin took and brought him in their barrio. The entry further showed of finding a related quote from Alice Bailey two days after while reading her book on Esoteric Astrology. The quote goes here:

“The unveiled Neptune relates Cancer to no other constellation or sign; it indicates that the Initiate doesn’t react to ordinary feeling, sentiment or to personality relations as they reflect themselves in pleasure or pain. All these are surmounted and eventually the watery life of emotional reaction is superseded by the life of true and inclusive love. Soul control ‘obliterates’ the moon and all traces of Neptunian life. The Initiate is no longer ruled by the Mother of Forms or by the God of the Waters. When the ‘waters break and are carried away,’ the Mother gives birth to the Son and that individual spiritual entity then stands free.”

Another entry dated November 14, 2004 again recorded a dream of delivering a healthy baby with no pain, very quick.

Believing in the soul and its past life, I meditated further. Could this baby be mine? Have we met three years before he was born, in those dreams? Why did fate lead me back to Mindanao ? Why did his parents also come back after working in Nueva Ecija for almost a decade? Why did his mother leave him? Why did the only thing – the cup - that was used by all my children survived and made its way along with us?

“Oh no!” I told myself. “That couldn’t be. No one would believe me.”

I heard my other self replied, “But you believe that nothing in this world is a co-incidence; that there is a purpose for every meeting; that everything is a part of a grand design of the Universe.”

I thought, “Then what would the people say? What would they think?”

Quite disappointed, my other self spoke, “So you are worried about what people might think or say. Have you forgotten how you have defied many people in your life? You have defied your parents when they begged you to get out of that dangerous life in the shadows. You have defied the father of your children when he threatened to stop his financial support if you’d go your way back in Mindanao with your children. You have defied your co-workers when they wanted you to stop dealing with their ‘enemies’. You have further defied them when you resigned from your work. You have defied all of them not out of anger and pride, but out of unselfish love, a love that serves all, loves all, respects all, and fears none.”

I did not listen. The resistance was still strong that I snubbed him when I saw him twice. However, the more I resisted, the more that signs persisted. Everyday thereafter, two or three signs would appear; signs that told of a mother and child through a song, and another song, and another song, or a flash of a mother-and-son image in my meditation. I even was able to guess his two first names with only the first name as hint. Still playing on names, I was also able to interpret the relation of my cousin in that dream years ago. The name of the baby’s father coincides with the name of my cousin’s cousin who lives in the barrio where my cousin brought the baby in that dream.

The watery life of emotional reaction must be superseded by the life of true and inclusive love. The Mother must give birth to the Son and that individual spiritual entity must then stand free. Thus the meaning goes deeper until it reaches my soul.

The cry of my son is important, more important than what the people would say or think. With the same courage that his father did when he talked with me that night, I dressed up, picked up the cup and crossed the road. I prayed that his father, or his aunt, or his grandmother comes out so I can give the cup before I go to the city to buy the milk. In that long wait for the bus, a motorized vehicle suddenly stopped at the other lane. The Universe conspired with me when I saw his grandmother alighted from the vehicle. There was no thought of missing this chance and I told her I have something to tell her when I get back.

The narrow trail to their house became invisible with the moonless night. Everybody was there except his father. I went up to the house and wondered where the baby was. It was as if my voice was already familiar that the baby made a cry; or maybe the angel woke him up telling him, “Wake up! Wake up! She’s finally here.”

Mother’s instinct pushed me to come into the room without asking for permission. There in a blanket with two ends tied at two small posts was my baby. This reminded me of the song “Ugoy ng Duyan” which I practiced singing for him three days ago. The baby whispered to me when I unexpectedly heard the song sang at a primetime TV show just the other night.

His grandmother took him then I called his name and said “Hi!” If he would smile, it would be a good sign. He smiled! Yes, he did! In disbelief, I told her aunt, “See, he smiled!” There was indeed recognition, earlier with my voice, then at my sight.

So for more than an hour, I told her grandmother how I came to believe that his grandson is my son; that I have known him years before he was born; that the Disney cup with all its magic and fantasy that is Disney has traveled together with me to uncover the secrets of our souls – that of my child’s and mine.

The night was falling and telling me it was time to leave. I waved goodbye to my son and he responded with a beautiful smile that gave me inspiration to write this story, our story, the story of how I found my fourth child who was born by another woman, the story of how I found Gian.