Prelude: We were asked by our writing teacher last night, to think of anything that reminds us of our family. “Something vivid,” Dr. George Garneau said.
“My final reducing advice can be summed up in two words: think small. Don’t rummage around in your past–or your family’s past—to find episodes that you think are ‘important’ enough to be worthy of including in your memoir. Look for small self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you still remember them it’s because they contain a universal truth that your readers will recognize from their own life,” Theo (Dr. Garneau’s preference) said as he read the excerpts from our reading assignment that the great William Zinsser wrote.
The loves that makes me whole.
What is still vivid in my mind, is seeing my dad at the side of the bed, brushing a peck to wake my up my mom, for the breakfast he prepares every morning. “First lady, breakfast is ready…,” as he kisses her on the forehead.
For 12 years, (my age when he passed away), in every morning of our lives, that’s what my father reminded me of the most-To love deeply, with no slightest fear, and fight for all the people, and things that you care about. And be passionate in doing it.
My parents love for one another has a huge impact in all facets of my life.
My father taught me to read books passionately, commit to learning (go for masters, PhDs, or other degrees as much you can), and make a difference in the lives of the people I come across with, most especially, the less privileged (as a lawyer, he represented all his low-income clients for free).
But among all the greatest things I have learned from him, it is to love deeply, that I truly cherish the most. For it puts all things in places, when you love and give your all.
LOVE CONQUERS ALL
A love that blossoms in spring.
My dad represented my mom, in a criminal proceeding, after she defended herself from an abusive relationship.
After winning the trial, they got married. And my father adopted my two half-brothers, and named them his own.
Because of their wide age gap, a lot of people, some are even relatives, made their stupid assumptions that their love won’t survive. And that if my dad dies, “guarantee,” they (nosy folks) said, she is going to marry anew.
Well, they’re wrong! For my mom never did. She was 45, when my father died. But my mom, didn’t even went to a single date, not once, and I am so proud of her.
But I am glad, my father did not listened to all those “bugs”. And you might be wondering why I tagged them bugs, but that’s what they are to me. In all it’s meanings, they are all bugs to me.
And they should be thankful, I was still young that time, that I just follow my mom, to just let it go,
With all those storms, and dangerous people, my parents survived it all.
My mom never left my dad side, for the whole one-month of being bedridden before his passing, my mom stood by him, holding his hand. Be they were awake or a sleep, my mom did not let go of his hand. And there’s a rosary in between those hands, for she never wants to give him up. I really admire her courage.
That’s what they reminded me of-A love so true that blossoms in spring, flourishes in summer, and keeps growing flowers in winter. And it is the love that makes me whole.
