In remembrance

It has now been 15 years since the passing of my younger brother Bill.  He was a vibrant 27 year old engineer until that unsuccessful brain surgery.

He is the second to the youngest sibling while I am second to the oldest.  I remember him as a bedimpled young boy who always goes with me to the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Shrine every Wednesday.  He was a freshman in high school while I recently graduated from college.  I'd wait for him to come home from school and we would go together to attend the novena to pray for my success not only in the board examination but also in my job search.

Our Mother of Perpetual Help

I remember he kept a garden in front of our house.  He had very nice santan flowers that are unmatched in the entire neighborhood.  A few days after his death, a neighbor came to ask for twigs.  My youngest brother told her, Bill is gone.  She was saddened by the news as she remembered seeing him always in the 5:30 morning mass in our parish church with my grandmother.

Almost everybody felt our deep loss.  It is not usual for a younger family member to go before the older ones.  So we grieved a lot on his passing.  It was tough for all of us specially that he was strong and healthy.  In the hospital, when the nurses were preparing to take him after he breathed his last, one male nurse expressed his sadness as well.  He said he was the one who admitted him.  Bill was just like any normal young man who walked in that day.  One can never tell there was anything wrong with him.

He was right.  We wouldn't have known if not for the involuntary crossing of his one eye which happened a few times.  He went to an eye doctor who found nothing.  My grandmother, who's a nurse advised him to go to a neurologist.  After a series of tests, they found a tumor in his brain.

In loving remembrance of Bill, I offer this prayer for the dead attributed to St. Ignatius of Antioch:

Prayer for the Dead

Receive in tranquility and peace, O Lord, the souls of your servants who have departed this present life to come to you. Grant them rest and place them in the habitations of light, the abodes of blessed spirits. Give them the life that will not age, good things that will not pass away, delights that have no end, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Increase our faith

I just came back Thursday from a week of R&R.  I was informed that a family member of my cleaning lady died so she was not able to come to my house since a few days back.  It was back to reality again.  I was  relieved that there was electricity in the evening.

However, in the morning, when I was about to prepare my tea, I noticed that the matches were damp.  I am not sure how it happened.  But I panicked because I would not be able to boil water for my bath.  It was quite cold, having rained the past several days.

I told myself, I am not going to give up.  I prayed hard for God to make a miracle.  I took out a matchstick and tried to start a fire.  After two or three tries, I was about to say it's not going to work.  But then at the back of my mind I was still not ready to give up.  So I took out a matchstick once more and voila!!!  I ran with the lit matchstick to get a paper making sure that it will start the fire in the charcoal stove.  Thank God, it did.  I was able to have hot tea and also warm the spaghetti I cooked the night before.  Today's gospel reading says:

If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,

you would say to this mulberry tree,

"Be uprooted and planted in the sea," and it would obey you.

 

Indeed, this experience is a testimony to God's word.  It may seem trivial, but it made my day.  Up to this day, it is still a challenge for me to cook with charcoal but I think I have improved so much.

The charcoal stove I am using to cook