Where oh where is that silver lining

I heard an extremely sad story today. A friend's baby passed away at about 5 months' of age. That is a very traumatic thing to happen to a parent. Losing your child at any age or under any circumstance must be extremely trying for any parent.

There is nothing that I can say to make the healing process any less painful than it is. It is during such times when it is best not to say too much and just share the pain through silence. I mean it is already such a painful time, it seems redundant to say "I know how you feel", "You must be strong". I guess all of us try to help by expressing our thoughts. I think it is also how we comfort ourselves.

When life dishes out a tribulation, it is never easy to always see the silver lining behind the dark cloud. But the silver lining is there. It just takes time to manifest itself in ways we can understand. Why do I believe that? Because I believe that God is merciful. I do not think that He would make us suffer for his enjoyment. I do not believe that He puts us through trials and tribulations for no reason. I believe that He truly wants us to learn.

I encouraged this friend to find a religion he can follow. A religion will be able to carry you when nothing else can. When the going is tough, when things beyond our comprehension happen, when we are totally lost and in despair. I want to share this poem which came into my life many years ago when I first found God. I don't know who wrote it and according to Wikipedia, the author is disputed so I am not giving credit to anyone except God for this.

FOOTPRINTS

One night I had a dream...

I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord, and
across the sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand;
one belonged to me, and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of my life flashed before us,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that many times along the path of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.

I also noticed that it happened at the very lowest
and saddest times in my life
This really bothered me, and I questioned the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said that once I decided to follow You,
You would walk with me all the way;
But I have noticed that during the
most troublesome times in my life,
There is only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why in times when I
needed You the most, You should leave me.

The Lord replied, "My precious, precious
child. I love you, and I would never,
never leave you during your times of
trial and suffering.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you.

Don't despair, for that silver lining is there.......just let your heart go and you will find it.

Primary 1 woes and joys

Keane started Primary 1 by missing the first 3 days of school due to a fever. He had a challenging first week and the second week didn't prove to be any easier so far.

During the first week, he had a buddy to bring him around during recess for 3 days. He bought his own food and played soccer with his buddy. After the buddy was relieved of his duty, Keane started to go for lunch by himself. He was amazingly independent and was able to use the public phone by following the instructions next to the phone. He called his dad and made small talk. This was the start of what we think will be an ongoing habit. He calls his dad everyday during recess and has even started to call him before school starts.

You would think the phone calls are a good sign of father and son bonding. I don't disagree but there is always a BUT. The flip side is that he uses random coins when he makes these calls so a call can cost 10 cents, 20 cents or 50 cents, depending on the coin he picks and not the length of time he spent on the phone. He came back without a penny today. He started the day with $2.60. His lunch cost $0.70. You do the math.

He also lost his water bottle today. He lost it once last week, as reported during his recess phone call to his dad, but found it and brought it home on the same day. We are waiting to see if he can find it again tomorrow. In case you think I did not perform my motherly duty, I did label almost single piece of his belongings.

On the first day he attended school, he came home and told us that he slept in class!!! The only comfort with that was he woke up by himself. I hope the teacher didn't notice! I'm honestly not sure if he really fell asleep, dozed off or was simply daydreaming.

Yesterday his teacher reported that he threw away his worksheets in class. We guessed it was because he made some errors and he didn't want to do more homework. He forgot to bring his workbook home today and was not able to do his homework.

He also had an issue with sitting at the parade square before flag raising. He would sulk and sit on a bench away from the parade square. During a rainy day, he refused to go to the hall for assembly until his teacher brought him up.
These little things are the least of my concerns. When I asked him if he had any friends in school and he said no. He has been eating his lunch by himself. I asked if he liked his friends in class and he said no. I asked if his friends in class were nice to him and he said no. After some probing he said that one of the girls in his class insisted on opening his book despite his protests. I have no idea why the girl was trying to open his book. With Keane, she could have been trying to do something perfectly legitimate which he cannot explain clearly.

Keane doesn't need to be Mr Popular in class but I hope that he will find a friend soon. All we ask is for our son to be able to find one loyal friend. We are asking Xavier to spend time with him during recess so that he will not be so lonely.

I am worried that Keane has the stereo typical middle child syndrome. I am very close to bringing him to a psychiatrist. I hope that I will be proven wrong very quickly. Wish me luck!!!

Another new year

Another new year has dawned upon us......the end of the world didn't happen. Perhaps it was because Psy didn't obtain that magical 1,000,000,000 hits before 20-12-2012. Perhaps it was because the Mayans made a slight error in their calculations. Whatever it is, we are now in 2013. What does the new year herald for us?

Towards the end of 2012, a lot of people I knew commented that time passed so quickly and the end of the year came upon us like a tsunami. It seems that as the years went by, time flew faster and we are running out of time to do all the things we wanted. Is it just because we are getting older? I have a theory why time passes so quickly as the years go by. I blame it on man and its by product technology. Let me explain.

Many many years ago, communication was probably restricted to verbal channels. If you had a message for someone, you had to see that person face to face. It might have taken a couple of days to visit a relative from the next village to say hello. With the invention of paper, it might have taken a couple of hours to write a message on paper and have someone deliver it for you. With the invention of the telephone, instantaneous, provided your relative was at home. With the invention of the mobile phone, it is instantaneous, provided your relative answered the phone. Hey, with SMS, who cares? Just text the hello across!

You save the few minutes previously taken up with going to the printer to collect your printout, walking to the fax machine, punching in a few numbers, waiting for the fax transmission to be completed and going back to your desk, by using email. And the response may come back in a matter of seconds, depending on the typing speed of the opposite party and the Internet speed he/she has access to.

With the reduced amount of time we need to conduct such activities, we can actually squeeze more in a day. With more activities, time would seem shorter. But does it do us any good?

When I used to write letters to my friends, although they were few and far in between, I would spend time to compose the letter carefully to make sure that my message is delivered properly. Nowadays with email, I spend less time with my draft. With SMS or Whatsapp, it is not even complete sentences! My written language has definitely deteriorated. I do not use any more flowery descriptive sentences. My writing is allegedly more concise. I cannot even write a poem anymore. I have lost my rhyme!

I have decided not to make new year resolutions since many years ago. I am not a resolution keeper. In fact, resolutions backfire on me more often than not. Say if I want to lose weight, I will end up eating more. How about making backward resolutions I hear you say. Nah, I tend to keep those. It's selective resolution keeping. So I just do what I want to do when I feel like it. I live for the moment. Not very good in the general scheme of things but very convenient!

Here's wishing one and all a fantastic 2013 with good health and happiness!