Silver Linings

A friend asked me last night, “How does that make you feel?” referring to the fragile relationship I have with Alphonse these days. I had to pause and think of an answer. I haven’t been asked that question in a long while, so concerned are we all about Alphonse that no one ever bothers to ask how each of us feels anymore.

I told her I was sad but at the end of the day, it wasn’t about me, it was still all about him- Alphonse. Because no matter how hard we try to NOT make him the center of our lives, he IS. And it isn’t because we choose to. It isn’t because we’re masochistic martyrs who need the drama in our lives. It’s because he NEEDS us to. There is no one else but us. If somehow, by some strange twist of fate, he gravitates towards the periphery of our family’s life, if he becomes less important than he is now, then who else will be there for him? No one. Sad but true.

The truth is, I am still mourning over the ways my relationship with Alphonse has changed. I no longer have 100% participation in his daily life and it is not because of lack of trying. The many times I have tried to insinuate myself in his daily life, he would lash out at me with violence and anger after an initially very positive response. It’s a special kind of anger he reserves solely for me, and not for anyone else. Certainly not for his nannies who have become the orbiting satellites of his existence today, and if only for that, I am still deeply grateful. I cannot bear the thought of him hurting anyone else.

Then too, my presence creates more work for them, as they end up mopping after the emotional wreckage that Alphonse becomes after days with me. They are the ones who have to calm him down, who have to help him process this rage and let it go. Me, I feel like a puppeteer most of the times. I hold the strings that move our lives, but these strings also keep me always an arm’s length away from him.

As sad as I am over these changes, I do understand that he will have to move away from me to grow. If I allow Alex, my eldest boy, his freedom to be who he is without me hovering like a helicopter parent, then I must accept that Alphonse, by virtue of his age and size, requires that same kind of freedom from me. It’s a difficult and tricky slope to maneuver, balancing his special needs (of which he requires almost 24/7 supervision) with his desire to become an individual separate from me.

Still, there is no time to wallow in self pity. Battle scarred as we all are now, we’ve learned to seize opportunities when they do come. The early mornings when he wakes up and there’s just the two of us around, those are mine, all mine. That’s when I still sense the special closeness that existed between us all these years. That’s when he recognizes me as Mamam and calls me such. I cling to these moments fiercely, guarding them as my precious, albeit, tenuous links to my baby, now almost all grown.

When the clouds are forever hiding the sun, you learn to squint your eyes and look hard for the silver lining. And true enough, by God’s mercy, they are always there.

Happiness is… (ix)

living the Gratitude Attitude,

even when it is sometimes difficult.

I admit it, despite my cheery and self- deprecating bluster, sometimes, even I find it hard to always be happy and grateful. Some days, I wake up already feeling overwhelmed by the day that lies ahead. There’s always one or more nagging worries running around through my head, and they can be crippling, these worries that seize me and keep me awake at night.

For the most part, there’s always a simmering anxiety about Alphonse. Even on really good days, which now number more than the bad, it isn’t easy to live without fear of the recent past returning. It gets even worse during bad days. In the past week, Alphonse was irritable and prone to meltdowns again. My anxieties mounted in the middle of Alphonse’s own fragile state. (Please pray for him, my friends.)

Still, it was A♥’s absence for an extended period of time last week that proved to be the tipping point. With my emotions all over the place, I gave in to my feelings of despair and longing and showed my broken heart for all to see. Somewhere in that episode of unusual lack of restraint, however, I realized something- that Thomas Fuller was right when he wrote that “no man can be happy without a friend, nor be sure of his friend until he is unhappy.” In those brief moments of unhappiness, I learned who my friends were. Thank you to all those who asked after me, who reassured me with their constant friendship.

One bright sunshine in those gloomy days came in the form of a precious gift from a new friend. Sometimes, in the middle of my tears, I would look at it and be forced to smile and be thankful as I reflected on the hands that made the gift with love and care and the hearts that gave willingly, without expectation of reciprocity. My grateful thanks to my friend Cynthia and her mom, Tita Zeny, always.

Love♥

I will always be grateful for my friends, for their presence in my sometimes turbulent life. I will always be grateful for the Love that sustains me and my family, even when times are tough. And I will always look into my life with an attitude that takes nothing for granted. There is so much to be thankful for. Despite the dark, stormy clouds, the sun always comes out in the end.

Happiness is… (vi)

knowing that even when I leave this world,

Alphonse will always be in good hands. 

 

 ”We are not only our brother’s keeper; in countless large and small ways, we are our brother’s maker.”

Boring is Good

I had a busy last two weeks, which was good because I got out of the house more frequently than I have of late. I’ve been feeling cooped up here at home after a cycle of nonstop ring-a-ring-o’-posies with the flu. The down side was that I got too busy to sit down and jot what’s been happening with me and the family. Between the chores still piled up here at home (when, oh, when will I ever finish?), the kids (and for all their size, they are still kids- big, messy ones at that), and the unexpected changes in all our schedules, squeezing in some computer time was next to impossible. You know when something happens and you instantly think, “Wait till till I post this in my blog”? Well, that happened more times than I can count and I never could follow through.

The good news is we’re all okay now. Things are often BORING here at home and I mean it in the best possible sense. After two weeks of whirlwind activities, including some days off in Singapore, boring is an absolutely welcome development for this family- no unexpected changes, no unpredictable shifts, no crazy tilts in our already rollercoaster lives. I am ready for some down time, baby!

I do have stories to tell you of things I’ve seen and done and places I’ve visited in the last two weeks. One of them, I hope, will become part of Alphonse’s new life soon- an absolute gem of a find in the middle of this crowded city, an oasis for children like him. I’m still working out the details, but I hope that Alphonse will be able to get out of the house more often from then on. Wish us luck, please! We’re going to need it.

In the meantime, I will be uploading new pictures and resizing them for use in the next few days’ posts. Thanks for staying tuned, my friends. Will be back again tomorrow!

~0~

My happiness thought of the day:

Happiness is…

a three year-old nephew who screams in delight at the sight of his beloved, albeit disabled, cousin.

“Oh my God! That’s Kuya Alphonse! That’s Kuya Alphonse! I can’t believe it!”

Joseph has not seen Kuya* Alphonse in months since Alphonse got sick. It was my decision to keep him away, mindful that Alphonse may accidentally hurt him; he is so small and delicate still. But he never fails to ask about Alphonse in phone calls, and whenever someone asks him who he loves, he always says “Kuya Alphonse” without hesitation. Their happy reunion last Monday happened at my dad’s 70th birthday dinner.

Love is contagious, but so are fear and prejudice. I am grateful that my brothers and sisters love Alphonse so much that they passed on this same love for Alphonse to their children. Joseph knows Kuya Alphonse is different. Kuya sometimes tramples him underfoot, accidentally. Kuya sometimes refuses to share his bubbles. But Joseph understands, even at a young age, and adores Alphonse without fear, without revulsion, without judgment.

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Wish we could just all love one another this way.

*(Big Brother)

For Alex

At 5 am this morning, Alex asked me to take his vital signs. “I feel my heart racing, Mama,” he said, as he handed me the medical kit. After having his heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure  checked (all normal), he kissed me gently on the cheek and whispered “I love you, Mama. Thank you.” Then, he left the room to get ready for school, leaving me and Alphonse alone in the room.

I’ve missed this boy’s kisses. I missed the little child he once was. I should never have let him grow up too fast and too early. All too soon. my little baby — premature and fuzzy, too small even for small-sized infant clothes — has become a man. Today, he is mere moments away from complete independence and I miss all the moments in between.

I will always be grateful for this young man’s love. Alex — romantic and sweet, headstrong and stubborn, emotional and fiery — is my wellspring of joy and my source of humor and lightheartedness. Only Alex can make me laugh the way he does.

***

At six

When he was six, Alex brought home wrote an essay he wrote about the woman he loved most in the world — me! In it, he wrote that I was kind and generous, thoughtful and caring. I was very flattered until he told me his classmate wrote that his mother was, ahh, ehhm, sexy. I remember him punctuating the sentence with a little gasp.

“And why didn’t you write the same of me?” I feigned hurt feelings.

“But Mama, that would be a lie!”

May you always be honest, my love, even if the truth may hurt.

***

picture borrowed from The Celadon's FB page

A few weeks ago, Alex told us that  he had applied for membership to the Celadon, his university’s official Chinese Filipino organization.

“Are you sure, son? You are only an eighth Chinese!” I reminded him.

“Well, Mama, if there were eight parts of me, I am sure that one of them is a hundred percent Chinese!”

May you always be proud of who you are, my son. Never let anyone make you think or feel that you are less than who you are.

***

Saturday afternoon, A and I were discussing a family issue and the debate was fun, lively, and engaging. Alex, on the computer, seemed oblivious to it all at first. After a while, probably tired from hearing his parents go on and on, he suddenly said, “In marriage, one person is always right and the other is the husband.” A readily conceded defeat and we all started laughing.

What can I say? I trained my boy well!

And may you always remember that love means giving of yourself, even if it means losing in the process.

***

I love you, Alex. Don’t you ever forget that.

Here Comes the Sun

There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course.

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

~Carl Jung

“Little darling
It’s been a long, cold, lonely winter
Little darling
It feels like years since it’s been here…”

“Little darling
The smiles returning to the faces
Little darling
It seems like years since it’s been here …”

    “Little darling
I see the ice is slowly melting
Little darling
It seems like years since it’s been clear…”

 ”Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It’s alright.”

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

~ Albert Einstein

Baby Love

I would like you all to meet Vicky, the youngest grandchild in our family. She was born yesterday. Her parents are my younger brother Jeff and my sister-in-law Tata. She is a child we all eagerly waited for.

Tata and Jeff’s love story began almost the same time as A’s and mine (I am only two years older than my baby brother but I love calling him baby, still, haha). Their relationship started in the early years of college in the Ateneo de Manila University, lasting throughout and past law school (also at the Ateneo) into their professional life as successful lawyers. So even as my sons are well into the last of their teenage years, Jeff and Tata have only begun to start their family.

I met Vicky for the first time today. She was still inside the nursery unit as she recovered from an accidental burn in the shoulder area at the time of her delivery (the way I understood it, it was from a cautery machine used in her mother’s Caesarian delivery). But even separated from her by a sheet of thick glass, I knew I loved this child the moment I laid my eyes on her. She looks so much like her mom, but her expressions are exactly her dad’s, the boy whom I fawned and doted upon growing up.

I love you, Vicky. May your life be always sweet, may sorrow never shadow your days, and may God’s grace be with you always. I look forward to seeing you grow up.

.

Okay, baby, paparazzo’s leaving…

Of all the blessings God sends from above, the one most precious is a new baby to love.

The Short Days of Singapore

Up until the plane took off early Saturday morning, I was unsure if leaving Alphonse for a few days was a good idea. I had packed hesitantly the night before, throwing things haphazardly in three suitcases (one each for my husband, Alex, and myself) and taking them out just as soon, so unsure was I that we were doing the right thing by Alphonse. I wanted to stay behind. I tried desperately to convince my husband that I was needed here but he gently reminded me that we have two children- not just one- and Alex deserved just as much of our time as his brother did. With my sister coming in to pitch in to help and Alphonse’s schedule covered by his teachers and nannies, he felt Alphonse would be in good hands.

And he was right.

For each of the four days we were gone, we received text messages and e-mail on regular intervals, assuring us that Alphonse was alright. He was busy the whole day with his teachers and nannies. Although he pined for us and waited till late at night by the gate, he would soon be overcome by sleep that getting him to bed was not such a problem for his caregivers. And while there were some moments of tension and irritability, these were short-lived and generally manageable, they reported.

I could not immerse myself in the excitement of the trip as I constantly waited for updates from home. So ingrained was my worry that I could not sleep until after they sent us messages to tell us that Alphonse had gone to bed.  My heart was always in my throat as I prepared for the worst. But for the first time in weeks, I slept for long, unbroken, dreamless hours. My husband was right: Alphonse and I needed to be away from each other, even for just a short while.

In Singapore, we caught a matinee of the play The Lion King at the Marina Bay Sands. We were fortunate to get tickets to the show that day. I cried as soon as the opening sequence started, as I remembered Alphonse at home. (The Lion King was the first full-length movie he ever liked and he watched it daily for a year.) We visited the ArtScience Museum and stayed for hours, savoring the uniquely wonderful exhibits of The Silk Road, Genghis Khan, and Shipwrecked Treasures.

We rode the cable cars to Sentosa and spent a whole day in Universal Studios where we were met with sporadic but strong rain. The rain was a wonderful respite from the humid heat. With just a small umbrella in our handcarry, we bought flimsy raincovers sold at SD2 apiece but this, we discovered, did not protect us from getting soaked to our underwear at the Jurassic Park River Adventure. Still, we were too wussy to try out any of the rollercoaster rides (I have a broken neck- that’s my excuse).

We walked a lot in Singapore, more than we did at home anyway. We rode the MRT like locals and Alex was proud of his newfound skill.  We went to the malls in Orchard Road to look for presents for family at home. Alex bought books at Kinokuniya and I picked up some Sylvanian Families at Takashimaya. And we ate together as a family, sitting on chairs with real tables for the first time in months. We had chicken rice and kopi and beef pepper rice. We devoured double quarter pounders at McDonald’s. We picked up breads at 7-11 and ate them late at night with instant cup noodles and Cokes purchased from the vendo machine on the second floor. It was a brief vacation, but worth every second of Alex’s smiles.

It’s not easy balancing the needs of everyone in our family. Alphonse’s special needs have constantly come in first in our lives and we have often overlooked Alex in the process. We always took for granted that because he was bigger, smarter, and wiser, he would need us less. This has always been my regret- that one child has sometimes felt less loved and less wanted as we focused so much on another. I hope, that as Alex grows older, he starts to truly understand his parents’ intentions and actions. That even as our actions sometimes spoke otherwise, there has never been a day when he was out of our mind and our hearts.

We hope you enjoyed Singapore, dear Alex.

Missing Alex

Dear Alex,

I wanted to start my day thinking of happy thoughts so I thought about you. I miss you, son. It’s been a week since we were last together under one roof. When Alphonse was in the hospital, I hardly saw you as you were in school the whole day. Your short visits at night, just before going home, meant a lot to me, to us. Your daily visit was the one “normal” event of our days, where you would tell us about school, your teachers, and all your friends. In those short hours, we could all pretend we were at home and we were the family we always were- loud, quirky, yes, a little weird- and together.  

I’m sorry I sent you away to live with your grandmother for a while. I know you didn’t want to go when I first told you. You said you had just been home with us and you had to leave again. I hope you understand that I didn’t want you to have to come home to all the chaos and despair of our days. Alphonse is still far from being well and I hated for you to see him like this. And with final exams this week, I didn’t want you to have to dwell on any other thing except that which is most important. Just think about school for now, okay?

It could not have been easy for you, having to grapple and restrain your brother when he goes amuck. You know what? It’s not easy for me either and I’m an old hand at this already. I know you could not study at home because he would rummage through your school bag and destroy your bag, books and notebooks. Even our family dinners have disappeared in this siege. We could only eat when he was asleep late in the night. There were many times you had to endure eating separately, alone, in some dim corner of the house he would least likely visit, because if he saw you eating, he’d throw all your food on the floor. I’m really sorry, Alex.

Remember the night two weeks ago when he grabbed me by my hair several times and attempted to bite my head? You had to pull him by his hair because that was the only way to get him away from me; his hands were already held back by your dad and the nannies and he was still so strong he could come at me over and over again. Oh, how miserable you looked afterwards. You kept apologizing to me and to Alphonse long after the day had passed. It’s okay, son. It really is. I know you didn’t mean to hurt him and I’m sure he knows it too. We love you very, very much.

I know you’re doing well at Mommy Lola’s. Aside from your daily phone call and your text messages, I call and talk to Mommy to ask about you whenever I can get away from Alphonse. They all love you there, I’m sure of it. I bet you’re even getting a wee bit spoiled there.  (Don’t enjoy the pampering too much!) They say your little cousin Sese idolizes you. I heard he makes your tummy his bouncy mattress as well, that little squirt. Be patient with him, ha? Continue to be loving to your grandparents, aunts and uncles. I want you to remember that their love must always be reciprocated with obedience and respect.  And, oh, don’t forget to say thank you always to Kuya Teteng, the driver who brings you to and from school.

I hope we can all be together soon, Alex. Pray for all of us here at home, Alphonse, most of all. I think he misses you because he sleeps in your bed while you are gone. When exams are over, you can try to come home for a short while and see if Alphonse will respond to you the way he used to. You can even sit in his classes and help out his new teachers. We have more men coming in the house all day to help so you won’t find it too hard alone here.

Stay safe, my love.

♥Mama

In happier days (November last year)

Bookends

Alphonse had had his 20^th car ride yesterday and his dad was tiring out. They had been everywhere the whole day, as Alphonse constantly begged, demanded, and when that didn’t work, pushed, pulled, and bullied his dad into submission. A had tried hiding around the house but Alphonse’s bloodhound nose seemed to follow his scent everywhere. I had already gone along in one long-ish car ride, going as far as Greenhills to pick up carrot cake and some fresh Ferrino’s bibingkas (sticky rice cakes). I had to say “No” to the subsequent trips; the car ride made me dizzy yesterday.

On the last trip, my husband was flat out tired and sensing this, I took Alphonse by the hand. I led him to the makeshift school house we had at back and he followed meekly. There I prodded him to jump, run, and dance. Alphonse always has so much energy; he’d never sleep early if we didn’t tire him out. Yesterday, however, he was lazy, lethargic, and relentlessly tried to put one over me by putting down a mattress on the floor. When I stood on a stepladder and challenged him to jump as high as my outstretched hands, he finally got into the groove of our jumping game. After a few minutes, he was squealing in glee, jumping away to the music of the “Chicken Dance.”

We played for an hour, maybe two; I really didn’t notice time ticking away. Also, I had been meaning to fix the school house again so after he wandered off for a water play break, I started cleaning up, fixing drawers, throwing away broken toys and other trash he stuffed in his toy closets. Before I knew it, the sky had darkened considerably. Alphonse had already bathed and gotten ready to bed. He kissed me goodbye and went back inside the house.

He was back just a few minutes later, his eyes already small from sleep but desperately trying hard to stay awake. He took my hand and tried to lead me away. There were still many things left undone and I packed them away hurriedly, reluctantly. I followed him back into the house, up the flight of stairs to our bedroom, and into bed. His dad had fallen asleep while watching television. Alphonse went to his usual spot, in the middle of the large king-sized bed, with me on the right and his dad on the left. He shimmied himself underneath a thick comforter and holding both his dad’s and my hands, gave me his sweetest, most beguiling, most content smile. Then he closed his eyes, still smiling, and went to sleep without a fuss.

I held his hand and looked at him, wondering how long we can hold his hands like this. I fear for our future more and more, as he seems so wrapped up in a world where his father and I are the posts that prop his world up. I looked back at the last two weeks and remembered how angry and lost he was when we were gone. The memory must haunt him still as he seeks us out constantly, perhaps afraid he has lost us forever.

And then I willed the apprehensions away, pushing them out of my mind. The future is still a long way ahead. Tonight, I thought, I give thanks for sleep that came readily to this fearful, insecure man-child.  And moving him closer to my body, I continued to hold his hand, my other hand reaching out to my husband’s free hand. We are locked together, hand in hand. In the stillness of the room, a single thought crossed my mind before sleep finally claimed its prize.

 “We are his bookends, after all.”