Random Thoughts on Some Friends' Thoughts

In the mood to read and then comment on the blog entries of friends, I thought of posting here on my own blog site bits of them which touched my ever-feeling heart and moved my ever-restless hands.

from Ronalisa Co's March 16 entry on her blog site, Public Me:

The Peter Pan in Each of Us
I watched Finding Neverland last night, a film about the famous author J.M. Barrie and his friendship with the family who inspired him to write Peter Pan and the magical world of Neverland.

I loved how the film showed J. M. Barrie’s wild imagination: He looks at one object and imagines it to be doing something else, like how he looked at the boys and imagined them flying out of their room's open window.

The film really touched me, especially that it talked about family matters and of how the death of parents could make grownups out of children. I cried when one of the Llewelyn Davies children, George, told Barrie how worried he was about his mother’s health and how Barrie told him, “Something magical just happened in the last 30 seconds. You just grew up.” Or something like that. It prompted me to send an “I love you, Mama” text message to my mother.

Well, it’s true. When we were little, we didn’t really think about losing our parents. There was this part in each of us that seemed to be telling us that our parents were invincible, that they couldn't die and that they would always be there for us. [That was, perhaps, the Peter Pan in each of us actively working.]

But after some time, as we look at old pictures and compare it with new ones, we realize how much our parents' physical features have changed—wrinkles showing off, white hair on top of their balding heads, and other signs of aging. And then something deep inside will suddenly hit us like a jolt of lightning, that as we grow up and try to wrestle out of their control, they, too, are growing older...and that soon, shall Death come.

Flying Away from Us
Why do some people need to move away? My cousin Wewet and her family are about to move to Canada this coming May. Her husband, Kuya Andy, went ahead of them. By now his plane must already be somewhere leading to the land of their dreams. I didn’t cry last night though, although he has become very close to our family and we will all miss him terribly.What I’m really scared of right now is the time when Ate Wewet and my darling pamangkin, Jammy and Anson, would be going away. I don’t know what I will do. I will cry, of course. Just thinking about it is quite unbearable.

I always tell my friends who are keeping a long-distance relationship that things have become a lot easier for people these days because of the Internet.

Dear Rona,

On Finding Neverland:
You know, I share your fancy on that particular scene in the film which touched your heart: That scene about the child George suddenly turning into a grownup as soon as he began worrying about his mother's health and the prospect of death finally taking her.

Another part of the film that I loved was the scene in which George, after watching the play, told guests that Peter Pan was actually James Barrie himself.

On Long-Distance Relationships:
True, the availability of the Internet, as well as the various communication tools that it enables, plays a major role in helping people-in-love separated by distance. However, the Internet, I think, is just the icing on the cake—the cake being the intensity of the love drawing the two persons together as one despite distance and time.

Nevertheless, I admire the perseverance of our fellow Filipinos, many of them husbands, who had the courage and endurance to work in a faraway country like Saudi Arabia, away from their wives and children, during the era when the only affordable means of communication was writing and sending postal letters. I no longer wonder now what kept their sanity, for I surmise it was none other than love for their loved ones.

On Missing Our Loved Ones:
I very well relate with your predicament. I, too, am missing my nephews and niece in the Philippines. I yearn every unoccupied moment about the happy times I spent with all of them when I was still there. And you know what gives me more pain? To realize that when the time for me to return home and see them again comes, my adorable niece and nephews will not longer be children. All I could ever hope for, when that time arrives, is that the Peter Pan in each of them would have remained in their hearts, never to have flown away and left them to become grumpy grownups.

aLfie

from Edward Enriquez's January 11 entry on his blog site, Simple Mind:

Everything happens for a reason. Hmm... Wait, that may be debatable if you've read the book Angels and Demons, in which the author Dan Brown explains the origin of antimatter.

But I do believe that every person you come in contact with throughout your life, has a purpose. And I have a list of people whom I wanted to meet in the afterlife, whether it be in Heaven or somewhere else. One of them is my father.

Dear Edward,

"...every person you come in contact with throughout your life, has a purpose."

We share the same view on this one. It reminds me of the philosopher Democritus (c. 460–370 BC), who held that every event in the universe is causally determined by preceding events; suggesting that, yes, we have an effect—either negative or positive—on everyone whom and with everything which we come in contact in any period in each of our own lives. And I'd rather be a positive influence; although this is the harder choice for, according to a philosophy to which I ascribe, the tendency to be negative is the nature of humans.

aLfie

from Vayie de Leon's February 26 entry on her blog site, What's the Frequency, Vayie?:

“Why do bad things happen to good people?” My friend Pearl ponderously asked me over a McDonald’s breakfast last Wednesday morning.

I went home with that phrase ringing in my ears over and over again. This is the same question I’ve been asking myself for two weeks now since a myriad of problems started pouring at my doorstep like a plague.

I am a good person.

Sure, I may have done a lot of crazy, naughty things in my life, but who hasn’t? I may have stolen money from my daddy’s wallet when I was in high school, but who hadn't? I may have cursed, lied, enjoyed rumors, sometimes felt vindictive over other people’s failures, but haven’t you?

Dear Vayie,

...because. Just because! Ha-ha-ha.

Let's reverse it:

Why do good things happen to bad people?

Is that not another reality?

So, that leaves each of us with only two choices:

Be bad so good things will happen to you

and

Be good so bad things will happen to you.

Hahaha!

No way out.

The reason Life is a giant puzzle and all of us just mere pieces that wouldn't fit perfectly.

aLfie

from Ivy's March 18 entry on her blog site, Bliss:

...At least five persons in this world love you so much they would die for you.

Question, would you die for someone?

Dear Ivy,

I would rather live, not die, for someone.

aLfie