I dreamed a dream

Did the title remind you of something? I bet it did!  It’s one of the songs in Les Miserables, a very meaningful song which has already touched so many.  But if you think its magic has put only those who have seen the musical in a trance you’re wrong, because I dreamed a dream has awakened many more souls through a rendition by Susan Boyle. Find out why and how.  Here’s the song with its newest sensational singer:

There was a time when men were kind,
And their voices were soft,
And their words inviting.
There was a time when love was blind,
And the world was a song,
And the song was exciting.
There was a time when it all went wrong…

Please click on the link for a Youtube video of the song by Susan Boyle:

I dreamed a dream in time gone by,
When hope was high and life, worth living.
I dreamed that love would never die,
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.
Then I was young and unafraid,
And dreams were made and used and wasted.
There was no ransom to be paid,
No song unsung, no wine, untasted.

But the tigers come at night,
With their voices soft as thunder,
As they tear your hope apart,
And they turn your dream to shame.

He slept a summer by my side,
He filled my days with endless wonder…
He took my childhood in his stride,
But he was gone when autumn came!

And still I dream he’ll come to me,
That we will live the years together,
But there are dreams that cannot be,
And there are storms we cannot weather!

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living,
So different now from what it seemed…
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed…

Earth DAY 2009

After the Earth HOUR, which prompted millions to help save the planet by turning off lights comes Earth DAY 2009, April 22, which marks the start of a bigger and wider campaign for what I call “Bringing Earth’s Green Back”.  The great call states the following principles:

As shown by the massive response to Earth Hour, it seems safe to conclude that our world unites in an aim to re-habilitate our ailing planet.  As such, together with my household, I call on everyone who reads this blog to contribute a part in support of Earth Day Movement.  To show ours, here are the simple things we do for a cleaner, greener and better Earth:

• Turn off and unplug all the appliances when not in use.
• Minimize the kids’ use of television and DVD by substituting watching with book/magazine reading, engaging into indoor sports, dancing and the arts.
• Let your tot put on shorts at daytime when he’s just inside the house to lessen the number of soiled disposable diapers.  The reason behind this is explained by the following facts taken from Wikipedia:

Cloth diaper-wearing children go through about 6,000 diaper changes. If thrown into a landfill, cotton diapers decompose within six months. Since disposable diapers are discarded after a single use, usage of disposable diapers increases the burden on landfill sites, and increased environmental awareness has led to a growth in campaigns for parents to use reusable alternatives such as cloth or hybrid diapers. An estimated 27.4 billion disposable diapers are used each year in the US, resulting in a possible 3.4 million tons of used diapers adding to landfills each year.

• Reuse papers and plastic bags.
• Plant trees.  As my mom puts it, “if one individual who has lived to be 80 years old made a habit of planting a tree  on his birthday, he would have planted 80 trees in his lifetime“.  What if each of us follow the same?  Could you imagine the number of trees we could plant together; and the multitude of benefits that come with each of them?

These are just five of the many other ways of putting Earth’s life back to normal. What’s your part? Share it so we could learn from you, too!

Each of us has ONE life to live. Make each moment count. In the same way, each of us has ONE Earth to live in, make it clean and green!

Four things you can’t recover

I believe that things don’t just happen but are designed to happen in ways that only God understands.

A month ago, one of my uncles on my mother’s side informed us that Lolo Doro, one of my grandfather’s brothers was already weakened by his illness, inability to walk (he got an amputated leg), and perhaps old age. In an instant, Mados went to visit his uncle who asked for “Tinola”, a chicken dish.

Meanwhile, knowing Lolo Doro as a cry-baby, I hesitated to come along. Instead I planned to visit at a later date so that I could introduce Arvid Matthew, his great grandson to him.  I knew Lolo would be so happy to meet my little tot as he loves and appreciates every one who drops by to see him.  In my mind, the plan included asking a few of my cousins to come with me so we could take turns visiting our grandfather. That never happened.

One night upon coming home from his wake, I received an email from Mom Sandy that talks about the four things we can’t recover. The email did come on a right time!  It was sent to me for a reason.  Be with me as I read it again.

These reminders, especially the last two came down on me like bombs, exploding slowly but with a blast, one after the other. 

The occasion, after it’s missed…Lolo lived only a few minutes from us, but I never had time to visit nor greet him on any of his birthdays.  It’s only when he died that I found out he was born on April 01.  What good did knowing his birthday do?  Nothing.

The time, after it’s gone…Lolo lived to be 87 years old, yet I couldn’t say I’ve spent a whole month of it talking to him, sharing laughter and jokes.  I did spend more than that when we lived with him when I was still studying, but not when I lived somewhere else.  Yes, he’s not my immediate grandpa, but I still felt I owed him more than just remembering him.  As it happened, he didn’t even know I have been thinking of him a lot because he, in his simple ways, had been a part of who I am now.   I could write so many good things I learned from him, but he would never read them anymore.  Truly, actions speak louder than words so we ought to SHOW our dear ones how we love them every moment we’re with them.

God knows we love our families, our parents, siblings, husbands, wives or children; but it’s not enough that we THINK of that love.  Let’s SHOW it, and what better way to start that than by TELLING them “I love you!”

If you think it’s a hard thing to do, just think how harder it would be not to be able to do it at all.

God bless us all!

Happy Birthday, Tito Andrei!

When I was still a very little baby, my Tito Andrei used to take care of me. I appreciate that, of course, that’s why I practiced a lot to surprise my loving uncle on his birthday.

Guess what I did? I asked Mame Arlene to call Tito Andrei early in the morning so I could personally greet him a happy, healthy and blessed birthday! My surprise was my ability to pronounce his name “Adyey”!

I really hoped Tito liked it! We love you, Tito Adyey!  Thank you for being kind, loving, funny and full of life.  I miss you, po!  Mame misses you, too…truly, your helping hand meant a lot and was appreciated more than you ever knew.

Happy, happy, happy birthday to you!

Love and prayers,
Arvid Matthew

Desiderata

I love poetry. It runs in my veins, beats with my heart and lives forever in and with my thoughts. It jogs, screams and rejoices with me through crowds seeking faces, observing details, re-living each person or moment’s joy, pain, defeat or success and always, almost always ending up with hope and faith that is larger than my existence.

My passion didn’t come naturally the way it did with Shakespeare, Dickinson, Hemingway or Kipling, though. Instead it was sparked by a dream of a very important person, my dad.  This realization occured just a few minutes ago after I read his latest email, which is a copy of the famous poem Desiderata, the Latin for “things to be desired”.

It’s the first time Dad sent a copy of the poem to my siblings and me, but the poem itself wasn’t new to me at all.  I remember seeing a poster of it in our old house when I was only a child.  It’s printed with  orange flowers as background, silently trying to do its job but is never appreciated.  For almost a decade it graced a part of our living room’s wall, precious yet unnoticed, may be because it has always been there and it will always be; but I was wrong.

A few storms came and our house, being the first stone house in the community became a refuge for our neighbors whose rooftops flew away with the rushing wind.  Sometime later I found “Desiderata” on a pile of soaked things.  It doesn’t grace our wall anymore.  That’s the only time I really stopped to read it.  That’s when Dad explained what a poetry is to me and showed me the remaining copy of his poems written during his student days at the then Central Luzon Polytechnic College, now Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology. His poems were simple  but powerful, just like his influence to me as his first child.

I knew my siblings were surprised to receive a copy of the poem from our dad because they never really knew that part of him.  Nobody dared to find out, except me.  Perhaps because dad never really knew how he’d show it to my brothers and sisters, too.  I hope the sending of “Desiderata” would open the gate for each of us.

Here’s Desiderata, the poem that commands us to live our lives beautifully and cheerfully by being in good terms with all persons, speaking the truth, respecting the wisdom of the olds, being content, believing in yourself and living a life centered around someone bigger than the rest of us, God.

Thanks, Dad, for the beautiful reminder!  I love you!

Happy reading everyone!

For a printable version of the poem, please visit Desiderata.