Jandrea...so far

  For days, since the COVID-19 became pandemic, I had been silently shedding tears for many reasons. One day, for the death of the father of a former student. On another day, by news that former students had volunteered to stay on on as medical interns in PGH even if their program had been suspensed. It was as if I could feel the anxiety of the families left behind while these future doctors risked their young lives.  Following these days, crying had become a daily occurrence as I went through both sad news of more deaths and alarming information about the spread of the disease. Work demands were also raising my anxiety levels and I was slowly being pulled into an emotional state that I could say was bordering on desperation. But nothing would prepare me for the devastating news that a friend of mine had died of severe pneumonia related to the dreaded virus. We were just almost through the first week of the quarantine and somehow the gravity of the situation did not hit me ...

What do you do when you want to share a piece of news with someone who is no longer there? You just say it aloud (with feelings pa!) as if she is just beside you. Then you tear up a bit (ok, not just a little bit) when you realize that she already knows and might even be instrumental in making it happen from where she is! I miss you terribly, Letty!

Aug 31, '10 10:01 AM              I was seated on one of the wooden benches in DAP taking in this beautiful sight on a just-right cool day in Tagaytay when I noticed that the light on the lawn would change from minute to minute. First, the sun was bright and intense on the ground, then suddenly the light softened, and then the colors of the trees and grass would glow again. It was like someone up there was playfully folding and unfolding a giant umbrella over the area where I was. Looking up, I noticed a flurry of clouds move from the end of the sky farthest from me towards the direction over my head. Sometimes, the clouds took a lazy pace, taking their own sweet time to traverse the distance. But when I chose to pay close attention, up there was a spread of feathery clouds that seemed to be racing to get to a finish line.                And that w...

"May we never let the things we  DON'T  have or  CAN'T  have or  SHOULDN'T  have, spoil our enjoyment of all that we  HAVE . "         This is something I would love some people in ( or out of ) my life to learn.    I don't know if it is my fate to have had more than my share of unhappy people play significant roles in my life. Almost daily, in the past, I would be caught in the trap of having to listen to how life has treated them unfairly. My role in these talks,  it seemed, was to point out to them how they would feel better if they saw the bigger picture of their lives... how they only seemed to focus on the dark and bleak parts and glossed over the brighter splashes of color during their day. If I succeeded at all in letting them see what was promising about their lives, I seldom got any clue.           Close to emotional exhaustion one time from...

Psych best buddies             At 55, I am like a mother to this group of 20+ and 30+ year-olds. I do play that role to them sometimes but most often, I like believing that I'm just one of the gang. I hang out in the lounge in between and after classes and take long lunch breaks with them. Our tummy-aching laughter is our balm to our not-at-all humdrum life as teachers.  Trying to mold the lives (not only minds) of our students the best way we can gets tough sometimes. Avoiding being hit in the cross-fire or being the target itself in some skirmishes is a challenge we have to face, and it really, really helps that we can seek cover in each other's company. Getting our act together as decent human beings is a tad easier knowing that  with our slips and mistakes,  we will expect any of us to say "Tsk, Tsk, Tsk!"  but that same someone will lift us up, anyway.  Our seemingly mundane victories (ranging from completing a sylla...

Day 6, Caceres: 14 August 2011                 The journey continues... so far, it has been both joyous and challenging. My children and I have been blessed by being given the chance to be here, together. It is an opportunity that may never come again and thus, I am determined to make the most out of this pilgrimage to strengthen not only our filial bonds but also our connection to our Catholic faith.                             Today, the Cubao pilgrims joined in the celebration of the Holy Mass with the community and the families from the Parish of Beato Spinola which hosted our group for the Days in the Diocese. We were asked to lead in the singing of some of the mass songs. Thus, we chose to sing “Purihin ang Panginoon” which we had learned to sing with parts in Spanish, English, and Fil...

     There’s so much to tell about Flory. As I recall the many memories I have of her, they alternately bring me to the brink of tears or laughter escapes even from this unhappy heart.  My story of Flory has been very hard to write, not because there are deep dark secrets I’m trying hard not to reveal, but because I know the way I will relate my memories of her will always pale in comparison to the way she would tell her version of these memories.                   I first met Flory in college, in the late 1970s, when we were members of the UP Psychology Society. Then in the 1980s, our paths crossed again at the Foreign Service Institute. I was delighted to see a romance blossoming between two of my friends. (Trygve was a former colleague of my then would-be husband, Dani). As we shared a workplace for some years, we were witnesses to each other’s weddings, the birth...

Monday, May 29, 2006 7:36 am (Postcard is from http://postsecret.blogspot.com) I should be used to this now. Friends leaving without saying good-bye. And me, not knowing why... And yet it still hurts. It's like tears falling in slow motion. If you try hard, you could catch the tear before it falls. It's like trickles of water escaping from the edge of a dam. What do you do to keep it from overflowing?  Do you confront the well from where the tears spring? But you tell yourself it's not worth it. They didn't think it was.  

Saturday, November 22, 2008 5:22 pm There comes a point in your life when you realize: who matters, who never did, who won't anymore... and who always will. So, don't worry about people from your past, there's a reason why they didn't make it to your future. Got this in my e-mail. Got to thinking about (AGAIN!) the friends who went away... the friends that were always there and suddenly had no desire to breathe the same air that sustained me. Too many blog entries have been written about them. Poems even! So many years asking why, why, why! Enough, I guess, even if it means not knowing the their reasons for their staying away. Too much time wasted grappling with the shadows. Too many negative emotions crowding out memories of warmth and laughter shared in days past. Too much wasted energy which should have been invested in celebrations of love and new friendship instead! The time for mourning is up!  Tapos na an...

04/27/2009 02:38 am The molars are most often subjected to the hardest toil and that is probably the reason why these are the teeth that usually need repair and attention. When they become diseased, dental procedures like root canals manage to save them from the good, old-fashioned extraction. But there are circumstances, like what happened to my tooth, that makes one decide that the more practical option is to let the tooth go. Last April 17, I went through a most difficult dental procedure which lasted more than 3 hours. Surviving that trauma to my mouth, I had to deal later with the bleeding, inflammation, and eventually the pain when the pain blocker wore off. The ice packs, mefenamic acid, and saline solution would help for a few days but 10 days later, the pain is still there. Two days ago, while mulling over the dull ache in my mouth and the inconvenience it was causing me, a most unflattering comparison came to mind. I likened my extracted molar to a friend...

10/03/2007 03:53 pm (Para kay AC, BG, at NdC) And so the list lengthens Without me knowing why It stabs at the heart It allows but a tear to escape Because more than that Would salt the wound that is already there. Do I deserve no good-byes? No baring of scars I may have caused No chance to plead my case Or even just to hear...thank you for your friendship But no, thanks! I look beyond And see no more liaisons of this kind Not to delight my spirit And then burn holes in my mind Not to hold up a mirror to two kindred souls And then be left behind with shards of what was But again can never be.           Today, maybe against my better judgment, I took a chance at friendship again.

03/24/2007 08:49 am "The next time you feel like God cannot use you, just remember: Noah was a drunk. Jacob was a liar. Leah was ugly. Abraham was too old. Isaac was a daydreamer. Joseph was abused. Gideon was afraid. Elijah was suicidal. Jonah was an escapist. Job was bankrupt. Jeremiah was a crybaby. The disciples fell asleep while praying. Peter denied Christ. And ... Lazarus was dead! " I knew someday, goody-two-shoes me would fail the test. My evaluation would read like this ... Jandrea was a conditional friend. She could no longer live with a friend's "borderline personality disorder" ( someone else's diagnosis, not mine) and so she bailed out! And so I began to doubt whether I was a good disciple, whether I deserved to continue my ministry as His servant. I don't know. Maybe this is something that I will need to ponder on come Holy Week.