My mind is hurting, my heart is crying and my soul is mourning.....

I have been thinking about heaven lately that I had thought of my grandfather Igmidio delos Reyes who was a role model for me in my pursuit of God.  His love for God as manifested in his untiring meditation of His Word day and night while his hair was still black, then salt and pepper until it all became grey has been deeply impressed within me up to this day..

My big question and wondering  as I lay in my bed while it was still dawn was "When is Jesus coming again?" My grandpa had waited for a long time and then he was gone.  My mother believed in Jesus coming again...and she was also gone.  And yet Jesus hasn't come yet...

I've been hoping then that I won't die, but meet Jesus in the air.  However, will this be fair for the next generation after me?  What about their plans of going to Mars and inhabit it, settle there and make a career and life there?  If Jesus comes now, then it is like all mankind's hope for Mars to be another inhabited planet will be futile...But then what about my waiting for His return?  Will I die like my grandpa, like my mother and not see Jesus return in my lifetime.

The thought of heaven being forever and a long long time somehow created in me a feeling of dejection.  However, I just have to trust His word that He is coming again---that He had to go away to prepare a place for me in His Father's house.  And where He is, there I will be also.

I got up.  Only to find a message in my inbox telling me of someone who became close to me even for a moment passed away.  I felt so sad that even if I was able to perform my tasks at home and at work, I was certain something was not right within me--my mind is hurting, my heart is crying and my soul is mourning. 

While sadness was overwhelming,  God had a way of dealing with my innermost self.  The office called and so I did not have to be sad but I was called to work again.

Yes, my work had been a good distraction.  As soon as I got home from my on-call interpreting jobs for the last two days, I still felt the impact of my elderly friend's death.  The heart-rending cases I became aware of as I did my job in the hospital also had a cumulative effect in my broken heart.

Tonight the son of my elderly friend sent me a picture of his mother in a coffin.  He said that his Mom had always mentioned then that she had a wonderful friend named Lilian---ah that should be me!

 This was so sweet to hear.  I did not know why she sat on that pew with me one Sabbath. Somehow my Mum and I sort of had established it as our permanent seat in church.  

After a couple of years of absence because my mother then needed a high level care until she passed away, I came back to church.

I knew another church member usually picked up my dear old sweet lady friend  to go to church. Why then did she sit across my side and not with the lady who usually gave her a lift?.  Did she hear about me giving up my university job to look after my mother that she became interested about me and asked about my mother? Or was she wishing she'd have a daughter like me as many elderly people I know also wished?  I never had a chance to ask.

When she sat next to me then for the first time, I cried profusely ...

What happened was she did not sit next to me the following Sabbath. Ah... she might have thought that sitting next to me would make me cry and she did not want to do that.  

Yes, she reminded me of my mother because she sat where my mother used to sit in church.  The truth of the matter, however, the first few Sabbaths when I went back to church, I used to shed tears which my eyeglasses hid as I sung hymns in church.  I missed the beautiful alto voice of my mother.  I also shed lots of tears during pastoral prayers while everybody's eyes were closed.  It was not her per se that made me cry---it was the thought of missing my mother. It was the thought that  I was alone then in that pew and this beautiful and kindred- spirited woman one Sabbath cared to sit next to me.  Or was it the Holy Spirit who led there in that pew where I was?

No that she was gone, too--like my own Mum, all that's left with me are memories of her and the brief time that I was able to minister to her and she, by the same token was also able to minister to me.

Once again I remind myself of what Jesus said....

Do not let your hearts be troubled.  You believe in God, believe also in me.

My Father's house has many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I am going  there to prepare a place for you?

And if I go and prepare a place for you,

I will come back and take you to be with me

that you also may be where I am.

You know the place where I am going.

My Words of Remembrance of My Father

Thank you all for being with us during this difficult time of our life.  It is written, Each of us lives for 70 years, or even 80 years if we are in good health."(Psalm 90:10).

Our father  D.Blanco loved life and was passionate about it that God, in his abounding grace, gave him 83 years of good and meaningful life on this earth.

Our father was a man of strong character and commanded respect, not only from us his children,  but also from almost our entire neighbourhood back in the Philippines and also here in Australia from all who knew him.  He was in general, a serious man.  However, I remember one of my first cousins, used to say about my father, "When Tio Del smiles, it is as if the heavens were opened."

As a policeman and being the son of a US Scout Ranger, our father had been a strong disciplinarian.  He expected us, his children, to be good and law-abiding citizens.  He did not want us to ever get in trouble with the law of the land. That's why from the time we were born, he carefully thought  out what names he would give us, most particularly my brothers.  Unlike most boys in or country with names ending with an "o," such as Mario, Alfredo, my brothers names were Abner, Nimrod, Rommel and DÁrtagnan. He said if our names were common and the same as anybody else's. chances are we could become victims of mistaken identity. Also, unlike most of the youth in 1960s who sport the Beatle hair, my brothers were not allow to grow their hair long.

When we were children, my father, in his best parenting effort assigned my siblings and I chores to do around the house and garden. He wrote each of our names in a blackboard with a corresponding chore next to it, noncompliance of which, meant a corresponding dose of discipline by rod or belt. 

Reflecting on this over the years, as we grew older, we realised our father was training all of us 1)  to become disciplined and responsible people and 2) to be mature and to be accountable for our actions.  He always stressed, "wrong choices often result to bad consequences."

Like all parents, our father cared to give us a better life.  I remember those years when we lived in a small house, which if not by God's protecting hand, could have been blown down by a long and strong typhoon called 28 de Mayo," by the locals, and how he , with the support of my mother, built a house of strong materials with 15 foot high ceiling and many wide windows.

I remember also he had set apart one room in our house to become a library because, like himself, he wanted us to read and develop a habit of it. One of the books in our library then was  Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories, which he read to us each night when he wasn't working night shift.  I remember also the many times he sang to us, while playing on the guitar, You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.  You made me happy when skies are grey."

By the same token, I remember the many times he sang to us "Pulisyang Pambansa," at the end of which he would blow his police whistle. [I posted a video with this song as soundtrack and I am also sharing it here:

Yes our father was strict and serious.  However, he had always made time, besides singing to us, to read stories or tell jokes which made us laugh. When we were so keen to see a movie, he watched the film first, scrutinised it, to be 110% sure, the film was good and wholesome to children. The movies that were approved by the board of censor which constituted only himself were The Sound of Music, Chitty Bang Bang and Snow White.

However, the first movie we all watched as a family was The Ten Commandments, after which he took us to a Chinese restaurant where we all ate hot noodles and steam buns.

Besides taking us to Chinese restaurant, he always took us to Max Fried Chicken.  He did not take us to Magnolia House because ice cream here was costlier, but regularly took us to a nearby ice cream parlour called La Filipina where we all ate as much ice cream as we wanted.

When we, all his children grew up and lived separate lives, our Father was still always there to us giving us all the support he could give when we were downcast and or having problems of many kinds. He continually gave us advice and said prayers for all of us.

He mellowed over the years.  He ceased to become the strict father we once had.  He became our friend and adviser. He, as well as our mother, served  as our inspiration to become achievers.  He still said, as he had always said to us when we were kids, there is no limit with what we can do, there is no limit with what our brains can learn. 

Practising this himself, even up to the 83 years he had lived on this earth, our father never ceased to read newspapers, books and magazines to develop himself and keep abreast of the latest world news.  He read regularly the Bible and also thick books on alternative medicine and general knowledge.  Till his death, his mind was as sharp as a needle.

One thing I would always remember my father for,  was his love for gardening.  I watched him work with pleasure and precision in the garden. Up to that time his mobility decreased, still he would work in the garden, bit slow yes, but he'd put all his efforts to walk out in the garden, turn on the tap and sit on his chair while he watered his plants.  

It was amazing that even in his old age, he still planted fruit trees--even if he knew he would not live to see them grow and bear fruit... 

My other siblings have their own words to remember our father.  All of us, however, would say in our father's final life's journey, he will forever remain alive in our hearts

in Johari terms....

Robert Louis Stevenson writes "the cruellest lies are often told in silence."

I became keen on a Tassie guy who interviewed me for a position in the university during the late 1990s.  Although he is an atheist, I found him to be friendly, accommodating, warm and gentle person.  Naturally, one (including myself) would not find it hard to like him.

Even if he was back to Tasmania, I had many times called him because my boss every now and then told me to call Tasmania whenever I had queries about  some stuff in the laboratory. In these calls, I became acquainted with him to know that he was going through a divorce from his first childless marriage and that he had a house in the wilderness,-a huge one, which he was renovating himself. He invited me to come and visit Tasmania and promised to show me around having already bought for himself a Volvo car after I had made the impression I was not keen on sailing with him.

At the same time I was getting to know him, I was also becoming acquainted with other staff in the lab, well enough to believe that he had also invited one of the girls in the lab, too at one stage to go with him to visit. I must have asked him about this but got no answer. His eyes, his body language, were in no way indicators for me to see through his 'blind' window.

Should I consider his silence the same as telling a lie? I would be inclined to, but then he is also a human being like I am. I thought maybe he realised that by revealing to me this secret in his 'hidden' window, would be like an invitational threat to our developing friendship. Or  maybe  like I do, he also wants privacy in certain areas of his life.  Or else, it must be too early in Johari terms, to enlarge the open window.
....
....

I went to Tasmania one year after he had invited me to come. I enjoyed the visit, the 45 minute drive away from Hobart to his house and the beautiful rose he picked from his garden to welcome me. I also enjoyed the drive up to Mt Wellington, as well as the Italian food.  It could have been perfect if he  had bought me the local ice cream for dessert, but he didn't. I kept this craving in my 'hidden' window, so he did not have any idea and hence did nothing to meet this sweet icy cold craving in that chilly autumn evening.

I spent the one day of my visit in a group tour to the Huon Valley with people the majority of who were members of the silver grey brigade and the other days with Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) woman and her family--not to mention that instead of attending his birthday celebration, I attended instead the birthday celebration of a friend of this SDA woman.  I must have concerns staying over at his house.

Whilst he picked me up from the airport and welcomed me with the business handshake, he did not see me off, but got early to the airport to entrust to the airport deskman  my pair of eyeglasses I left in his car. Yes,  I took them off being anxious  of being blown away by the big winds on the summit of Wellington mountain while we were there. Ah, I could not afford to lose my multifocals and transistion lenses--not ever again! after someone stole my bag with the previous pricey ones in it while I was in Parramatta library.

The airport guy was laughing in his eyes, I smiled and thanked him.  In Johari terms, the únknown'  window of this friendship, is not for him to look through and needless to say would  remain unknown to him.

It was my choice to hide it from him as insignificant as he is in this episode in my life--all he knew was I must have left my eyeglasses and my friend gave them to him. 


At least,  I could still see Hobart when the plane take off.

Please let me out of this box!!!!

How can you say it's love

when you put me in a box--so dark, so tight!

I want to get out of this box....

I want to free myself of torment and torture in my mind, 
my heart and in my bones

I do not want to be concealed!

I want to be out in the open

              to breathe in

              some refreshing and
              life-giving
              air!

 Got it?

?

Why am I Lonely?

The following is the content of a loose page I kept in my file for ages:


I found myself once again afflicted with what the doctors considered to be most devastating disease of modern man---loneliness.

Why am I lonely?

I am lonely because I became emotionally involved with the wrong person.
I am lonely because I lost this wrong person suddenly and
I am lonely because I find it hard to live without this wrong person in my life.

I am lonely because it has been hard to wake up knowing this person is no longer in my life
I am lonely because the new dimension he brought in my almost perfect and smooth life is now gone.

I am lonely because I was presumptuous--
He is lost! He needs to have a genuine relationship with God;
He is lost! He needs to find himself and see the real him at a better angle.

I am lonely because I must be presumptuously wrong!
I am lonely because I think this person even if he goes to church must not be a truly converted Christian.
I am lonely because I see him a broken person.

And I am lonely because I just see him as an iceberg.

I am lonely too because I think I hold the universe and as such I can decipher him and change him
And eventually find satisfaction in my brain having accomplished my purpose  in him--that is, to bring out the best in him;
to revolutionise a change in his self-image.
But in the long run--this was long and painful process
I was a failure.


That was yesterday--when I took fancy of 'loving' a person who was my professor, the boy next door, a screen actor, or the choir director at work.  Ah,  all my youthful idiosyncrasies. I liked the feeling of being in love, but at the same time I was afraid to be involved particularly physically as I had a different agenda then--to establish a career.  But then, I think it is so abnormal not to be attracted to someone.  I created stories in my head where I wrote the past, invented today and predicted the future.

Today I am lonely...really lonely.   I lost my only best and true earthly friend--my mother. It has been more than five months ago since she went to be with the Lord but I still cry, with tears in my eyes and arrows of pain in my heart 

.....

The days had been so dry during this spring.  My garden seems to be sad, too.  Or should I say at a lost and confused?  Yes, definitely!  The blooms are scanty, if not scarce.

But then I woke up.  And the heavens were crying with me.  I felt relieved! At least I know the creator of the heavens sympathise with me.

My beloved mama

Click here for a photoshow of my Mama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaTt-D6LIpc

A Lesson in Love

(Note:  Today is 2 February 2016.  I was surprised I haven't written anything here but posted it.  In my head I know the gist of what I want to say here.  When I went over my posts, I saw at least two drafts of the same title and there was nothing in them, too.  I think it is weird.  I had always wanted to write about this lesson I learned about love.  Anyway, I will have another go this August 2016---the 22nd of which was my big brother's 41st death anniversary).