the gift

I have always wanted to own a camera, a good camera. Eversince a friend back in college casually took a photo of me leaning against the window, the afternoon sun streaming through the sheer curtains....I had immediately coveted the precious thing. And now, many years and silent yearnings after, my husband got us one. Not that it is anything too grand, but well for the past months I had bided my time and made do with the 35mm kind, and even the 2megapixels phone camera. Even then, I knew I had the eye in picking out a good photo, if not exactly capturing one. Looking back however, I admit that those ordinary contraptions helped me a lot in being resourceful and more creative with pictures. And there's post-processing to be had. Needless to say, a new digital camera with ten times zoom and 6 million pixels is eons way better than what I had dreamed of. And I can't complain one bit.

I'm happy that I will finally be able to take the kind of photos that I like, of the kids, of nature, of friends and family, hell even of me. Without wanting to sound too forthcoming, I have all heart for photography, and if not yet the eyes, soon I will....

The best Christmas gift, never to be forgotten or put away. Snap, snap,snap we go!

Thank you, dear....

to sophia, belatedly....

Far from the grumblings I now read, about having you inside my tummy all those months, I smile at the thought that it was after all worth every hurdle and discomfort I went through. You are more than your father and I have anticipated.

The happiness you bring into our family make us marvel at everything more tenderly, as if with purer eyes. That by just being yourself. Innocent and yet perceptive of our love. Feeble and yet powerful enough to get us scuttling about for your needs and wants. Simple and yet to be treated with utmost care and delicacy…

Sometimes, you and I have our little clashes, when in my best effort I couldn’t grasp what you are trying to say. In your unrelenting baby aches and cries, you challenge me, and I frustrate you with my motherly blunders. But often, the smile in your face, that seem to tell me I am doing just right, more than makes up for all of those low moments in our young life together.

Your dad and I...we may not be the best parents, but hey we try, for you and your brother. As days pass, I will constantly miss holding you in my arms, lying awake in the wee hours to make sure you’re warm and sleeping soundly next to me. How I wish to slip back to that time, and enjoy you infinitely...

But too, I watch you everyday in eager faith, that you will grow up to be a strong, gracious girl. My little love, never be fearful to share with us your small sorrows, and in the due course of struggling, even your greatest joys…

Happy first birthday …I love you so.
(10.28.06)

In Remembrance of Toni

I have decided to go back here, thinking that this is where it all started. For many months, I have fancied writing again, and did so in another blog I created, but I continually idled around, that it has all become one protracted nonsense. The excuses for random things and laziness took over me again, but I admit the domestication of a mother like me kills whatever little brainwave activity is going about in my muddled head. And I can hear myself making excuses again. So on to blogging. This time I hope that I’ll be more motivated and constant to slog on to Blogger, rather than just clicking and reading what seem to be now the washed-out entries of long ago….

Sadly, the reason why I’m writing now is to grudgingly try to disentangle myself from the inward grief I feel for a beautiful girl I once met, but who is now up in the heavens with her maker. At the tender age of five, one ordinary, humdrum day, a speeding vehicle sideswiped her outside her home, and killed her in the ensuing minutes before aid rushed to her side.

How cruel can fate be, even to the innocent and helpless?

We met her on the occasion that I wrote of another two deaths in the family. Shy and pretty, with long beautiful jet black hair, I was drawn to her as I am always, to little kids who have no wariness or qualms about them, just coyness that awaits a welcoming gesture, for them to open up. Her folks graciously received us at their home where we stayed the night. They gave us the most comfortable room, in spite of our small protests. It was an occasion intended for sober actions, but having had the opportunity to know them as relations, it was otherwise a juncture that made my son gain a friend, and us, share a few heartwarming moments with them in that quaint town.

What breaks my heart now is that my son had doggedly asked me to give the little girl his CareBears pillow as a parting gift, but somehow she was too shy to accept. And 3 year old Gabby-- a perfect illustration of how kids can be mercilessly direct and unrefined sometimes-- changed his mind in a millisecond, when she was about to take it. Back then, it seemed amusing, but never was there a trace of foreboding that it was the first and last time we would see of that little angel.

Not a couple of months afterwards, we heard the sad news of her passing….

What to make of it? I don’t know. The loss of a child is not new to me, having had a miscarriage the first time I got pregnant. But I believe it is not nearly as agonizing or emotionally crushing, as having indeed spent years watching a little life from you grow and blossom into a beautiful living thing, breathing warmth into your otherwise controlled but dreary existence. Of how many times it made you laugh aloud and look at everything in a much gentler perspective, and often with rosy eyes. Of the fact that a little being could bring out so much enthusiasm in you, could test the ends of your patience, and reward you with boundless joy you never thought you could take pleasure in.

But how I feel for them, the ones she left behind, who will get back to the house, a place once awash with her happy clutter, and her childish laughter, and all the jollity of a small child, that is now empty and devoid of any hope, reverberating only in endless tears and untold sadness...

Why her?

Much as there is enough happiness found in my little kids, I can only cry, and cry eternally inside, for the special one that got away....

Blue-eyed Angel

I am no fan of the Tomkat, but certainly each one of us have our voyeuristic moment in showbiz, when you just got to have a quick look into that intriguing peephole. And this baby, little Suri, product of two demigods, is nothing short of a seraph. She’s just so beautiful that you can even forgive her manic, loopy father ...

bambina

i was watching you this morning, remembered you as a little life whose eyes had barely opened, and thought how fast time had flown since....now you are a cute little bundle of sweet smiles, and gurgles and coos...the softest skin, the littlest hands, the nicest smell in that body and little tuft of hair on your head...how can a mother not love you?

sophia 4 months

again....

It has been many months that I have itched to write something down on my blog. Heck, I do visit my spot everyday and hit Blog This! But once the empty page confronts me, my thoughts all get into a big jumble. And I grumble about having nothing to write. It's like having a very good dream at night, and being awaken by a loud thud in the morning, you open one eye and out your dreams go flying off the windows, like specks of dust......you just don't have the power to bring them back as a lucid whole. It frustrates me no end. The trouble with me is I am not always inclined to talk about the everyday things, which is what I'm exactly supposed to be doing. I mean, where do you get the inspiration to write anyway? Isn't it the inconsequential stuff around you that make up a structure of thoughts that push you into blogging? Yes, I agree....but it's me. Sometimes I want to talk about this and that, I am pretty sure I've had it in my mind......but the moment I sit down to write, all is gone into thin air. Am I in trouble? I guess, definitely. Dawdling dawdling dawdling.....

Anyway, so I say to myself, bear with my self....and she nods silently. Today, I feel terribly frustrated that I am in limbo....just incredibly staying afloat and waiting for life to take shape. It scares me to not have the courage to decide on something---where I am going, what I want, what I plan for tomorrow.... My thoughts wander, but something grounds me to where I am now. Is it my family? I don't know. I'm pretty much rotting in my comfort zone, and it's not comfort I am getting at all. I don't know my worth right now. Something must happen, I must get going. But where do I start? Hearing myself think this I am reminded of a virginia woolf and a sylvia plath, who thought so much of the world and life--but reduced to bare bones, they found life meaningless, thus the suicides.

People like van gogh, plath, hemingway--were they driven mad by the harshness of reality? But isn't it the same harsh reality that drove them to be mad and great? What makes one take his life anyway? Is it the too much-ness, or the nothing-ness? I remain clueless because I am not mad, nor great. I am just an everyday mother who has no cold weather or frigid husband or literary rejections to bleat about, and yet now I find life meaningless, and suicidal.