A week that is gentle and full

Today, I am captivated by the child I cradle in my arms. She is sleeping, and gently smiles a secret smile every now and then, as if someone is playing with her. I wonder what dreams she has. I envy the peace she is embraced with. To some degree, and on certain days most especially (like today), I miss my childhood — way back when life was so much simpler than life now could ever be. How lovely to be a child. This year has been beautiful, summarily. Yes, even with the tough stretches factored in: it is all good. I will not complain. Sometimes I sigh under the weight of the day’s problems, and I look up heavenward for rescue. I thank my mom and Lola Carmen for teaching me to pray. How much darker the problematic days would be if I did not have God to run to. He is all and is in all. May I be granted the grace of childlike faith, no matter how grown-up I am, no matter how harsh the world and people can get.

Everything that has happened in my life has brought me here. To this moment where, as I began writing this in my mind, my heart swells with gratitude for all that is, and even for those things that aren’t. I took on so many things this year, both on the personal and professional fronts, and I sometimes get overwhelmed with all I have to tick off from my “to-do” list. I am thankful Christmas is coming. It is my favorite time of the year — it has always been, it will always be. I hear Christmas songs, and they make me tear up happily. Maybe that is what growing older does to a person — everything is more tender, more precious. You don’t take anything for granted. I look forward to all the precious time I will be spending with family and friends then. They will make all the memories I shall keep, the very same ones I will look back on when I am all of 85 years old, gray and wrinkled like a prune, in a rocking chair with Richard by my side.

I wish to have the time to wrap Christmas presents soon. I have bought batches of gifts here and there over the months. I must start getting them organized. But right now, sleeping baby in my arms, I am tired but my heart is full. She is a new addition to the family, by the way: Sabel, my brother Jules and his wife Rica’s new baby. If she was not so small and new I would love to bury my face in her neck and inhale her scent — one that reminds me of vanilla and rain and warm milk, all of that all at once. And for all that isn’t perfect right now, I am thankful for many things that are — Starbucks Toffee Nut Latte, now back for the season; delicious scrambled eggs; little dreams that come true when I least expect them to; pretty plates and starched sheets; Christmas songs; a postcard I have on my desk of the Hong Kong harbor; fat burgers and a beautiful Christmas tree.

All that said, here is wishing you all a week that is gentle, yet full.