My Sister

Picked up today at Centennial airport my sister who came from Iloilo. On Monday she's leaving again for Georgia where she works as RN for the University Hospital. The last time we saw each other was when she came home 2 years ago, upon the request of our frail father who knew he wouldn't see her again, at least until he expired. Three weeks ago she came back to an undeniably different home, perhaps expecting a familiar greet, a sturdy frame and a fatherly smile. I could just imagine how her heart sank as she dragged herself, slowly, sadly, for the first time towards our father's tomb. There his body lay, motionless, voiceless and surely lifeless inside the cold steely box, unaware that my sister has come back wanting to see him but could not. As always, it's good to be spiritual. Surely, he smiles now that my sis is back with her paternal family. Now that she's coming back to the US, our paryers for him will come from different parts of the globe.

War

The Israeli-Hezbollah war has gotten deep into my nerves that I'm surfing more often now via my cellphone looking for its updates. Honestly, the ongoing war shifted my natural curiosity from pen collection to study of Israeli politics, middle east conflicts and the Caritas Lebanon. And war quotations. So, I'm posting these quotations from great names of what they say about war:

* The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. -Sun Tzu
* An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind. -Mahatma Gandhi
* An unjust peace is better than a just war. -Cicero
* We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it. -Dwight D. Eisenhower
* War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun. -Mao Zedong
* We make war that we may live in peace. -Aristotle
* It is only the dead who have seen the end of war. -Plato
* I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -Albert Einstein

Unfortunately (or lucky for you), I can't find one coming from Ms. Arroyo. Oh, I forgot, did I say quotations from great names?

Today

In between this post and below are 6 days of work. Yes, 6 days because I only stayed 1 day and a half in my birthplace Pototan, Iloilo. My father's 2nd death anniversary was like a breeze, just like his life. Relatives from both my father and my mother's side from Dumarao came, and we are talking here of not less than 50 physical bodies in all, plus our neighbors and friends (note that this is no longer the burial of my father).

We heard a 9:00am mass then went to my father's tomb and said a short prayer ( it was a little bit longer than I expected) while the 12noon sun burned our skin, my hankie soaked in sweat. After our visit with my father's holy relic (well, that's how I see it now until the last earth day when glorified bodies are reunited with their spirits), we went home and took our lunch-- letchon, estofado, valenciana, menudo and other Spanish-sounding foods I hardly recognize.

On a small bedside altar, my mother placed cup-sized amount of foods served, a little candle burning in the middle and a picture of my father on the side, a creative expression of not only remembering the dead, but belief that they share in our abundance and earthly joy. Foods offered in prayer and gratitude becomes a profession of faith of the unity of the living and the dead, of the church militant and the saints (now, my religion subjects are getting flesh and form here. Pardon me my fundamentalist friends, but this is pure Catholic practices derived from the principles of other holy books your predecessors omitted from the Bible you are using now).

It's feels good to be back home again, making up for the time lost with loved ones and refamiliarizing with every nook and smell of the house you once grew up. The feeling gets intense when you know you only get to do it one day in a year. Today regrettably, that was over.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I'll be away from Makati, a place that I feel I never belong to anyway, nor dreamt to be my retirement city. Tomorrow I won't be seeing Greenbelt 1, 2 or 3 or any structure that looks sturdy and tall or any place that smells Japanese ramen, Rustan's fresh, or Ayala-Edsa with all its toxic smoke and deafening noise.

In my hometown, in a far away, pristine place of Iloilo will I go. Tomorrow I'll take my little long-deserved rest. Yeah, only tomorrow.