A Poem to my everdearest lolo Ven….

Remembering Grandfather

All this time I still remember,
When I was only three,

It was a rainy bleak September,
That was the last time his face I saw.

A Father’s Day Poem to my everdearest Tatay…we miss u…we love u!!!

Oh Father Dearest

Oh father, how the time of past are ever so memorable with your ear to ear smile and sparkling eyes inseparable.
The times you inscribed to us, the rights from the wrongs has inspired your children to carry on.

You’d make us chuckle, a laugh or two with timeless words from your father and great grandpa too.
Father, you taught us much about life and so much more that we can only think of you while you watch over us from Heaven’s door.

To my everdearest lola Mey….on mother’s day…

"While we honor all our mothers
with words of love and praise.
While we tell about their goodness
and their kind and loving ways.
We should also think of Grandma,
she’s a mother too, you see….
For she mothered my dear mother
as my mother mothers me."

I love u, lola mey….you’re the best!

- Unknown

For you, nanay-on mother’s day…..

You Were There…. You were there when we took our first steps, And went unsteadily across the floor. You pushed and prodded: encouraged and guided, Until our steps took us out the door… You worry now "Are they ok?" Is there more you could have done? As we walk the paths of our unknown You wonder"Where have my children gone?" Where we are is where you have led us, With your special love you showed us a way, To believe in ourselves and the decisions we make. Taking on the challenge of life day-to-day. And where we go you can be sure, In spirit you shall never be alone. For where you are is what matters most to us, Because to us that will always be home…I love u, nay!

- Author Unknown.

DID I MARRY THE RIGHT PERSON?

During one of our seminars, a woman asked a common question. She said, "How do I know if I married the right person?" I noticed that there was a large man sitting next to her so I said, "It depends. Is that your husband?" In all seriousness, she answered "How do you know?" Let me answer this question because the chances are good that it’s weighing on your mind. Here’s the answer. EVERY relationship has a cycle. In the beginning, you fell in love with your spouse. You anticipated their call, wanted their touch, and liked their idiosyncrasies. Falling in love with your spouse wasn’t hard. In fact, it was a completely natural and spontaneous experience. You didn’t have to DO anything. That’s why it’s called "falling" in love… because it’s happening TO YOU. People in love sometimes say, "I was swept of my feet. " Think about the imagery of that __expression. It implies that you were just standing there; doing nothing, and then something came along and happened TO YOU. Falling is love is easy. It’s a passive and spontaneous experience. But after a few years of marriage, the euphoria of love fades. It’s the natural cycle of EVERY relationship. Slowly but surely, phone calls become a bother (if they come at all), touch is not always welcome (when it happens), and your spouse’s idiosyncrasies, instead of being cute, drive you nuts. The symptoms of this stage vary with every relationship, but if you think about your marriage, you will notice a dramatic difference between the initial stage when you were in love and a much duller or even angry subsequent stage. At this point, you and/or your spouse might start asking "Did I marry the right person?" And as you and your spouse reflect on the euphoria of the love you once had, you may begin to desire that experience with someone else. This is when marriages breakdown. People blame their spouse for their unhappiness and look outside their marriage for fulfillment.. Extramarital fulfillment comes in all shapes and sizes. Infidelity is the most obvious. But sometimes people turn to work, church, a hobby, a friendship, excessive TV, or abusive substances. But the answer to this dilemma does NOT lie outside your marriage. It lies within it. I’m not saying that you couldn’t fall in love with someone else. You could. And TEMPORARILY you’d feel better. But you’d be in the same situation a few years later. Because (listen carefully to this): THE KEY TO SUCCEEDING IN MARRIAGE IS NOT FINDING THE RIGHT PERSON; IT’S LEARNING TO LOVE THE PERSON YOU FOUND. SUSTAINING love is not a passive or spontaneous experience. It’ll NEVER just happen to you. You can’t "find" LASTING love. You have to "make" it day in and day out. That’s why we have the __expression "the labor of love. " Because it takes time, effort, and energy. And most importantly, it takes WISDOM. You have to know WHAT TO DO to make your marriage work. Make no mistake about it. Love is NOT a mystery. There are specific things you can do (with or without your spouse) to succeed with your marriage. Just as there are physical laws of the universe (such as gravity), there are also laws for relationships. Just as the right diet and exercise program makes you physically stronger, certain habits in your relationship WILL make your marriage stronger. It’s a direct cause and effect. If you know and apply the laws, the results are predictable… you can "make" love. Love in marriage is indeed a "decision"… not just a feeling.

Hon, happy happy birthday! Wishing u good health, and a good future ahead of us…Remember, we’ll grow old together,…it’s US forever!…Corny but it’s true. Love u, hon! Nothing has changed…trials will be trials, it’ll come, surely it’ll go,…We’re just starting to live our lives the way we want it,..?!!…So, what more can i say,..Happy birthday again! Love u always!

I’ll Always Be Right There

I swear to you - I will always be there for you -
there’s nothin’ I won’t do
I promise you - all my life I will live for you - we
will make it through

Forever - we will be
Together - just you and me
The more I get to know ya - the more I really care
With all of my heart - ya know I’ll always be…
Ya know I really love ya - ya nothin’ can compare
For all of my life - ya know I’ll always be - right
there

Teaching by example

By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer
Last updated 01:28am (Mla time) 10/11/2006

Published on Page A12 of the October 11, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

I REMEMBER again something I had read about parenting ages ago. A parent who keeps saying no to a child will not necessarily teach the child to be disciplined and righteous. He or she will probably just end up teaching the kid to say no to everything. That is, to become stubborn and contrary.

The principle is as simple as it is profound: Example is the best teacher there is. How we teach is what we teach. A child hearing his parent telling him constantly not to do things will not learn not to do things. He will learn to constantly tell other people not to do things. Or put another way, he will learn how to act like his parent.

In various interviews, particularly by college kids doing their paper in English, I’ve always been asked how I’ve raised my kids, whether I’m strict or not, what values I’ve tried to drum into them. I’ve always replied that I’m no better or worse than any other parent in the lecturing department, but that if there’s a value I’ve harped on, it is honesty or fairness. Worse than deluding others is deluding yourself. But I’ve never been big on ramming that down their throats. For one reason: I figure that whatever lessons I want to impart to them I’d teach best by what I am and do. If I do not live a life that’s honest and decent, or at least that aspires toward it, nothing I say is going to make them so.

I remembered these things after reading that the clamor for investigating the cheating in the nursing exams has gotten louder and wider. I’m glad it has; there’s hope for this country yet. At least Filipinos can still be roused up by major-league acts of dishonesty.

But I don’t know why the “thorough investigation” that more and more public and academic officials are clamoring for should be limited to the cheating in the nursing exams. I don’t know why that “thorough investigation,” if it means to be thorough at all, shouldn’t be directed to all instances of monstrous acts of cheating in this country. Indeed, I don’t know why that “thorough investigation,” if it means to be investigative at all, shouldn’t aim to determine the participation, direct or indirect, active or passive, of the highest authorities of the land themselves in cheating in this country.

The point is simple: The highest officials of this country, public or private, secular or religious, are the parents or guardians of this country. What they are and do is what they say and preach. How they act is what they teach. If they lie, cheat and steal, there is no warning against lying, cheating and stealing they can sound to the public that will be heeded. If they aid, abet and find ways to justify lying, cheating and killing, there is no threat they can issue to the public that will deter them from lying, cheating and stealing as well.

I’ve said my piece about the example Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has set by stealing the elections. Why should the nurses balk at trying to become bona fide nurses by answering leaked questions when the person claiming to be their bona fide President became so by counting votes from ballot boxes that were more leaky than the oil tanker that sank at the bottom of the sea near Guimaras? Why should the nurses agree to have the results of the exams rendered null and void because some of them cheated when the person claiming to be their President refuses to have the last elections declared null and void because she herself, with no small help from Garci, cheated the hell out of the voters?

But it isn’t just Arroyo who is setting a horrendous example there. I remember again Archbishop Ramon Arguelles’ breathtaking statement justifying the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ refusal to back the impeachment bid against Arroyo: “Talaga naman nandaya (si Arroyo)…. Pero lahat naman nandaya e. Natalo lang ’yung iba sa dayaan.” [“Of course, Arroyo cheated. But everyone cheated anyway. It’s just that the others lost in the cheating.”]

Coming from one of the “istambay” who hang out in our neighborhood off-track betting station, that would have been dismaying. Coming from no less than an archbishop, that is reprehensible. One would imagine, as I said in a column in response to that, that the sheer prevalence of cheating would make us say in the face of the mother of all cheating that it was time we did something to make the cheating stop. Not say, “sige na lang” [just let it be], let is fester till kingdom come.

Indeed, it wasn’t just Arguelles who said so, it was Jose de Venecia and the other representatives who refused to impeach Arroyo who said so. Their official line was that there was no evidence of cheating in the elections — by itself a blatant lie — their unofficial one was that everyone cheats anyway. They went on to say that the country had more important things than cheating to think about, there was the future of the country to think about. As though any country that was built on a lie could possibly have any future.

If I recall right, many Filipinos were already asking last year what kind of world we were leaving the children with the open, brutish and widespread razing of moral values our own leaders had embarked on. Susan Roces asked that expressly when she delivered her “I see no contrition in your eyes” speech at Club Filipino. What lessons, she asked Arroyo and Mike Defensor, are we teaching the children?

Whatever they are, it’s not just the children who are learning them. Everybody is. The nurses are. By all means let us have a thorough investigation of the cheating in the nursing exam, as deep and as wide as is necessary to ferret out the authors of this heinous crime. As we are bound to find out however, the true culprits go beyond a few nursing officials and/or a review center and go way, way up to the very people who run this country.

What they are and what they do are what they teach. Example is the best teacher there is.

RULES IN RELATIONSHIPS

Human beings crave intimacy, need to love and be loved. Yet people have much trouble doing so.

I have no idea what a healthy relationship even looks like. So I’m using this space as an attempt to remedy the problem.

Choose a partner wisely and well. We are attracted to people for all kinds of reasons. They remind us of someone from our past. They shower us with gifts and make us feel important. Evaluate a potential partner as you would a friend; look at their character, personality, values, their generosity of spirit, the relationship between their words and actions, their relationships with others.

Know your partner’s beliefs about relationships. Different people have different and often conflicting beliefs about relationships. You don’t want to fall in love with someone who expects lots of dishonesty in relationships; they’ll create it where it doesn’t exist.

Don’t confuse sex with love. Especially in the beginning of a relationship, attraction and pleasure in sex are often mistaken for love.

Know your needs and speak up for them clearly. A relationship is not a guessing game. Many people, men as well as women, fear stating their needs and, as a result, camouflage them. The result is disappointment at not getting what they want and anger at a partner for not having met their (unstated) needs. Closeness cannot occur without honesty. Your partner is not a mind reader.

View yourselves as a team, which means you are two unique individuals bringing different perspectives and strengths.

Know how to respect and manage differences; it’s the key to success in a relationship. Disagreements don’t sink relationships. Name-calling does. Learn how to handle the negative feelings that are the unavoidable byproduct of the differences between two people. Stonewalling or avoiding conflicts is NOT managing them.

If you don’t understand or like something your partner is doing, ask about it and why he or she is doing it. Talk and explore, don’t assume.

Solve problems as they arise. Don’t let resentments simmer. Most of what goes wrong in relationships can be traced to hurt feelings, leading partners to erect defenses against one another and to become strangers. Or enemies.

Learn to negotiate. Modern relationships no longer rely on roles cast by the culture. Couples create their own roles, so that virtually every act requires negotiation. It works best when good will prevails. Because people’s needs are fluid and change over time, and life’s demands change too, good relationships are negotiated and renegotiated all the time.

Listen, truly listen, to your partner’s concerns and complaints without judgment. Much of the time, just having someone listen is all we need. It opens the door to confiding. And empathy is crucial. Look at things from your partner’s perspective as well as your own.

Work hard at maintaining closeness. Closeness doesn’t happen by itself. In its absence, people drift apart and are susceptible to affairs. A good relationship isn’t an end goal; it’s a lifelong process maintained through regular attention.

Take a long-range view. A marriage is an agreement to spend a future together. Check out your dreams with each other regularly to make sure you’re both on the same path. Update your dreams regularly.

Never underestimate the power of good grooming.

Sex is good. Pillow talk is better. Sex is easy, intimacy is difficult. It requires honesty, openness, self-disclosure, confiding concerns, fears, sadnesses as well as hopes and dreams.

Never go to sleep angry. Try a little tenderness.

Apologize, apologize, apologize. Anyone can make a mistake. Repair attempts are crucial-highly predictive of marital happiness. They 0can be clumsy or funny, even sarcastic-but willingness to make up after an argument is central to every happy marriage.

Some dependency is good, but complete dependency on a partner for all one’s needs is an invitation to unhappiness for both partners. We’re all dependent to a degree-on friends, mentors, spouses-and men have just as many dependency needs as women.

Maintain self-respect and self-esteem. It’s easier for someone to like you and to be around you when you like yourself. Research has shown that the more roles people fill, the more sources of self-esteem they have. Meaningful work-paid or volunteer-has long been one of the most important ways to exercise and fortify a sense of self.

Enrich your relationship by bringing into it new interests from outside the relationship. The more passions in life that you have and share, the richer your relationship will be. It is unrealistic to expect one person to meet all of your needs in life.

Cooperate, cooperate, cooperate. Share responsibilities. Relationships work ONLY when they are two-way streets, with much give and take.

Stay open to spontaneity.

Maintain your energy. Stay healthy.

Recognize that all relationships have their ups and downs and do not ride at a continuous high all the time. No relationship is perfect all the time. Working together through the hard times will make the relationship stronger.

Make good sense of a bad relationship by examining it as a reflection of your beliefs about yourself. Don’t just run away from a bad relationship; you’ll only repeat it with the next partner. Use it as a mirror to look at yourself, to understand what part of you is creating this relationship. Change yourself before you change your relationship.

Understand that love is not an absolute, not a limited commodity that you’re in of or out of. Says Sollee: It’s a feeling that ebbs and flows depending on how you treat each other. If you learn new ways to interact, the feelings can come flowing back, often stronger than before.