Lizada: Blossom

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy. They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." --Marcel Proust

WHO are the people who make you happy? The obvious answer to that would be the ones closest to us and that would mean our family. Our spouse and our children. Our immediate family are the ones who are dearest to us. They are the ones most precious.

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I am fortunate to have a wife who is not just my wife but also my best friend, I know, I know, it sounds like a cliché‚ but it is true. My wife indeed is my very best friend. She knows who and what I am and she accepts and understands that. No one knows me better than my wife. And she loves me (I hope) in spite of who and what I am sometimes. My wife makes me happy.

My children make me happy. I am very happy with the way we have raised our children even if there are kinks here and there, but hey, no one is perfect. We all have our faults and weaknesses. But as a whole I am pleased with the way our children are growing up.

I am happy that Miguel is happy with his work as a professor of English. I am happy that Raphael is doing his darndest in his law school. I am happy with Gabriel in his studies in Educational Psychology. Their careers and choices are reflections of what drives them, what pushes them. Their choices tell us of the beauty and the passion within them. My children are my light and I am happy and proud of our children.
Outside this family are some people who have made our lives meaningful and yes happy. A very wise man said that let us be grateful for all those who come our way because they are gifts from above. That all people we meet teach us lessons if we are willing to be aware of those people.
It is a sad thing to let just people be and never realize the possibilities that they themselves can teach us. I have made it a point that for every person I meet, I put it in my head, that this was not a coincidence. There is no such thing as a coincidence.

And so when I think of the friends that I have, I think of the possibilities that we can offer each other, of the things that conspired to bring us together.

I think of a wonderful couple who have become more than just friends to us as they have become spiritual guides and mentors to us. We run to them when we need advice and they have never failed us. And the wonderful thing about all this is when we talk, we just realize how human and how blessed we are. We exchange food too! They give us chocolate cakes and we give them mangoes!

I think of my friends in Toastmasters and in my teaching. These people are some of my truest friends. Mga tao sila. We have cried and laughed together in meetings. We have been through many conferences and parties and deep conversations. We have even spent time in prayer sessions. More than speaking and listening, we are living. More than teaching, we are learning.

I think of my former students who I meet everywhere. In malls, in parties, in meetings, on the street and yes even in Facebook while playing Castleville! We exchange memories, we share present moments. I am so happy when I see former students tugging along their kids and telling them, hey that is my teacher! That gives me a kick and also a flash of realization that I am not as young as I used to be.

People make us happy and they are blessings and gifts from God. They are God’s way of telling us that He cares and loves us. He sends us wonderful persons who nurture and guide us, who tell us what we need to know even of sometimes we refuse to acknowledge the truth staring at us.

The people who inspire us, the people who lift us, the people who embrace us are the ones who make our lives worthwhile. Those who truly care for you are the ones who do not use you for their gratification or needs. Those who truly care for you are the ones who lay themselves as pathways for your growth and worth. They really do care for you.

Treat those you love with gratitude and respect for they are gifts from above. They make us grow. And yes they make us blossom.

Here are the lines from one of our favorite songs from James Taylor and not surprisingly the song is entitled Blossom:

Blossom, smile some sunshine down my way, Lately I've been lonesome Blossom, it's been much too long a day, Seems my dreams have frozen Melt my cares away.

CHORUS:

Send the sunshine down my way whenever I call your name
I know what you mean to say to me, girl it's all the same.

Blossom, there's any empty road behind, sit you down beside me
Blossom, there's a sweet dream on my mind, there's a song inside me
Take these chains away.

Blossom, smile some sunshine down on me, lately I've been lonesome
Blossom, it's been much too long a day, Seems my dreams have frozen
Melt my cares away.