Requiem

My sister and I received the bad news that our beloved cousin, Ate Charet, passed yesterday.

We both felt an immediate feeling of lose, of emptiness, of regret, of reminiscing memories that keeps her alive at that moment in our hearts.

Death is never easy to accept. One can never be 'ready' to this news, to this reality. I have had some very special people to me passed in the last six years and I know, deep in the cavern of my heart, I'm still grieving. It does get easy as the days, months, as years go by. The pain seems less. But scars remain.

Life is too precious to ignore. Time is too precious to waste. There are so many special people in our lives that we sometimes neglect because of the life we lead, the chaos of our existence somehow diminishes the time we spend to touch base with those who are truly important in our lives: the people who loves us, the people we love, the people who makes us who we are, the people who are there with us in the lowest times and the happiest times. May that be a family, may that be a friend. Be with them. Know them. Keep in touch with them. Tell them and make them feel your presence in their lives as theirs to yours.

Because there might not be any tomorrow left to spare.

Thank you, Ate Charet. You were a cousin, a friend, a confidante. You were someone who believed in me, someone who never fails to love me and understand me. Your presence in my life will be missed.

Now, you are an additional angel in heaven for me and Ate.

later.

Just so ...

.... I can appease a little of the tiny cracks in my heart that was due to the 'bad' but not necessarily surprising news I've got this morning, I'm posting this picture ...

To realize that there are guys like this out there ... and to look at them seems more than enough :-)

later.

Pete

Pete Sampras.

I remember the time when I was CRAZY about this guy. I mean CRAZY like to wake up at two in the morning so I can watch at Channel 4 the Wimbledon or the US Open or the French Open. So CRAZY that my first email address was jangsamp and was hopelessly following all the news or any news about this.

There will always be one Pete for me. This is him.

Will always have a special place in my heart for this guy.

In Time

Us

Ain't That Right, John?

Unhappy

To be unhappy is so easily attained.


It is, isn't it? We wake up in the morning, we try our best to choose to be happy on that day and we try it in the afternoon and try it in the evening and at night, before we finally hit our beds, we ask if we have achieved that choice we made early in the morning. Have we been happy?


Then we wake up one morning, we try it again and the next and the next one after that. Endless.

We always TRY to be happy. Yet, being unhappy is so attainable we choose to ignore it and replace it with some feeling we seem to be working so hard to attain every single day.


Why?


If you are unhappy, be unhappy. We sometimes don't necessarily have to choose to be something else or something more than what we are at the moment. The moment we try to revert to something else, we seem to be evading every single time the very essence of who we are; it will never expire, it will never cease to nag us.

I say we be unhappy. Get it all out of our system. Whine.Cry, damn it.


THEN GET OVER.





Maybe then, you will never TRY to be happy one day. Maybe you will truly BE.










later.

Old Lady

I look at this picture and I wonder if I can be as beautiful as this old lady when I grow up.




In my fleeting moments before slumber last night, I thought of how my life will be in the next fifty years. All the times from my 35th year and back and I ask what have I achieved so far that can make me the old lady I am at 85. Contented. Proud. Happy. At Peace.

Have I gone cliff diving as I have always wanted to do?
Have I been to places I have always wanted to visit?
Have I hosted enough dinners with friends and family?
Have I watched my children at the backyard while my husband plays tag with them?
Have I experienced enough sunrise and sunsets with my special some? My husband? My child? My sister? My best friend? A stranger?

Have I told enough stories?
Have I touched someone's life as many someones touched mine?
Have I listened to music to last me a lifetime of melodies?

Have I said enough 'I love yous'?
Have I said enough 'Thank yous'?
Have I said enough 'Please'?
Have I said enough 'Goodbyes'?
Have I said enough 'I forgive'?

Have I had many moments with God?

Have I cried enough?
Have I laughed enough?
Have I danced or sing enough?
Have I prayed enough?

Have I lived my life in which I am expected to live it by my Creator?

Have I had a life fullfilled?

Have I been worthy of the years I was blessed? Of the health I was given? Of the intelligence I have been bestowed? Of the opportunities provided? Of every single moments in my life?

There are just so much blessings that each day brings me. And sometimes, I feel I neglect each moments and allow the rot of life's daily grind to bite me.

I hope of life that is worthy of I was given. I hope of people I have in my life and more of the likes of them than the richness of the world. I hope for the beauty of the earth that no money can buy. I hope of all things that I can learn to live and I can live to learn.

I hope for an old age of no regrets.

I wish and pray and hope for the same to all those who read this blog. May we all live a life with all the sad moments it bring, with all the happy moments it bring but with no moments of regret in the end.

God bless you, my friend --- is what I think the old lady in the picture said.... as she have been blessed in her life.

later.