YESTERDAY ONCE MORE?

As usual, when this friend of mine and I get together, we always talk about life's quirky ways of making things happen. The discussion started out with him asking me if I was contented with my lot in life (we have been friends for more than 20 years!). He stated that he had seen me go through so much of hardship and pain, laughter and happiness and still have that 'get up and go' attitude.

His question set many questions chasing through my mind about what I had achieved from life's hard knocks as well happiness. Sure I had to go through hell from many unfortunate moments and incidents where I was hurt, battered and bruised, but even in the darkest moments of my life (my daughter Patricia's death), I knew that somehow in every dark cloud, a silver lining exists, as long as I had faith in God.

Even my marriage to a man who is the total opposite of me (he's a homebody and I am a party animal, predictions from people who judged me based on the outside without knowing the real me that this marriage would last 1 year tops), has withstood all the ups and downs and we are now going into the 17th year of our blessed union. The loss of Patricia has made both my husband and me taking a good look at our lives and opening our hearts to other options of being parents. The adoption of my darling Angeline has brought so much of happiness and joy that our relationship has gone even sweeter!

So to this friend I answered that I have achieved most of all I need and want from life, a happy family and a beautiful daughter. Now if only I could have that driving license and that Ford Escape I so want to drive, life would be 100% PERFECT!!!!

AN INTELLIGENT CHILD MAYBE OR PURE GENIUS?

During the Wesak Day weekend, we decided to spend it at home and not go anywhere. As usual, come Saturdays, hubby will vegetate in front of the idiot box watching football on Astro while baby and I will be trying to find things to do to amuse ourselves. I was upstairs in our room praying when hubby brought baby upstairs on the pretext that she wanted her feed and he sneaked back downstairs, leaving baby sucking on her bottle. It is not a big deal actually having baby with me, just that I had wanted some quiet time to myself to pray and finish reading the Da Vinci Code my cousin lent me.

Anyway, baby finished her milk and started to explore the room, up to her mischief! I was praying and happened to look up and saw a photo of my daughter Patricia's photo taken 5 days before she died. I was overwhelmed with sadness and tears started to flow again. Angeline saw the tears and she came over to me and called, "Mama, Mama", all the while hugging me and patting me on my back like as if she was telling me that she was there with me and everything would be alright.

This is not the first time my 22 month old girl has done that. She is very sensitive to my feelings and also very smart! Each time she knows that she has done something wrong, she will immediately try to butter me up so that I will not reprimand or cane her. If her daddy is home and she knows that her dad is mad at her for her mischief, she will give him a teary face and hand the cane over to him.....never fails! Her dad will not cane her!

She knows how to 'talk' on the phone/cellphone and hold the phone/cellphone like an adult! Each morning when she wakes, after her milk feed, she will ask me to call her dad on the phone so that she can 'talk' to him. When she sees us packing clothes into our travelling bags, she will run to 'help' by giving us the toys she wants! She puts her own soiled clothes into the laundry bucket that I use for her clothes, her used bottles on the kitchen counter and throw her soiled diapers into the waste bin, bring me her wet wipes and fresh diapers when I change her and all these she did on her own with no prompting from me since she was 18 months old!

I praise God for my Angeline who gives me so much joy and pleasure at the same time she can be a handful too! I wish that all who cannot have children but are longing to, would consider adopting!

God bless and have a good weekend!

MY 2 CENTS WORTH ON LIFE

It's late into the night, 0236 hours and I can't sleep. Somehow my mind seems to be working overtime these days with the onslaught that's being fired at the Catholic church in the forms of the Judas Gospels and that irritating Da Vinci Code book. For goodness sakes! That book debuted on the market as a work of pure FICTION and still there are people out there who are now questioning their very faith based on Dan Brown's book and his so called 'facts page'! These people are just sensationalizing this ill infomed author's work and making him into a millionaire! I thought his book boring and very, very irresponsible in the way he disses the very foundation of Christian beliefs. Mr. Brown just doesn't give a damn about the consequenses or the can of worms he opens with his irresponsible writing. If he was a Moslem and wrote in the same lines about Islam, a fatwa would be called and he would have had to go into hiding like Salman Rushdie!

Each and every person whether Moslem, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, etc, has a responsibility to his or her own self to see clearly where the truth is. A book written and published under the genre of FICTION should not rattle and shake one's religious foundations. In America maybe it is ok for them to disrespect the rights and beliefs of anyone but here in Malaysia, we have enjoyed free practice of our faiths the way we choose to and to live our lives in a decent and harmonius way. Sure there are some racial tensions to contend with, which country doesn't encounter this? At least here, there are no riots or rallies for equal footing like the American Africans are seeking in US.

I am not a zealous or religious fanatic. All I want from life is the freedom to practice my Catholic faith, live in a peaceful place, no war zones, be able to enjoy listening to my music, read my books and watch my daughter grow into whatever the Good Lord has planned for her. I am a simple person with simple needs and wants. My happiness is my husband and daughter and being a good person as my Lord Jesus would want me to be.

So please, do not let Dan Brown sway you in your religious beliefs. He writes FICTION.