alone in someone else's house

9:20PM

i just finished watching "the devil wears prada," had leftover pasta for dinner and nips (filipino chocolate) for dessert. it is both strange and delightful to be alone in a friend's house feeling like it's my own. Now, i get to try how single, independent life is without thinking of the financial responsibility. Seems fun except when the house is filled with deafening silence which happens, for only a few seconds, when i review what i have written. For the most part, i have dog barks and lizard sounds as my companion. oh! i almost forgot, Tiger (my friend's cat) is here too.

Tomorrow, ate hannah (my friend who owns this house) and i will meet again with the single Filipino moms we met last week. Last time, we talked about our names and the stories behind them and reflected on the importance of names in the Bible. It is interesting to note that both our names [hannah (Hebrew) and charisma (Greek : xaris)] denote grace. Anyway, for tomorrow, we'll work around the theme: We were made for a purpose. My idea is for us to reflect how the Lord uniquely created each one of us, gifting us with diverse strengths and capacities yet allowing us to have weaknesses too. From there, I hope that we could look into how the Lord has been weaving each of our story to reveal to us what His purpose is for our lives.

We have just begun and we are looking forward to four more weeks of discovery about ourselves and about these new-found friends. We are praying to be able to build genuine friendships with the women and for our encounters to be truly transformational. We both find this very interesting and challenging at the same time. well, for ate hannah, because she isn't pure filipino and for me, because i don't have my own kids yet. but we are both excited to see what the Lord will be doing among us.

on the frailty of life, letting go and last wishes..

Yesterday, my officemates and i decided to visit a former staff who had been sick/bedridden since May of last year due to kidney failure. She was supposed to be scheduled for a second transplant but various circumstances prevented this from happening. Today is her birthday too but she ended up celebrating in the hospital. Her blood pressure shoot up and she had to be rushed to PGH.

I can barely look at her when we arrived. From what i remember to be a strong, active woman she now seemed to have shrunk and can barely move. But despite the pain and difficulty, she greeted us all with a warm smile, with much eagerness in extending her frail hands to hold us, even to embrace us. Later on, she requested for a one-on-one talk with each of the staff present. (and i found out later that this was her way of telling us, one by one of her last wishes. To me, she asks that i take care of her closest friend, with whom i recently got close to. She even told me it is timely that we got close at this time. i didn't know how to respond so i kept forbidding her to speak (out of sincere concern because she practically aches to let out words and at the same time, escaping the thought of a big responsibility that she's handing to me. and then suddenly, she complains of a throbbing headache. To some of us who are medically adept, they easily recognized it as an increase of her blood pressure. The BP reading reached to 200/120. Good thing, one of us took a caregiving course in the past so she was able to provide first aid/alternative ways of relieving our “patient” from pain. But eventually, the patient had to be rushed to the nearest hospital to prevent her from having a stroke. We were there along with her as she was being led to the emergency room. We carried her things while her relatives took her to her room.

I left her room gripped with the truth that life is temporary. We are merely fleeting soldiers, merely passing by. . .