Category Archives: Life

Each sunrise, sunset is a blessing.

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While thinking about my 2011 personal goals, I reflected upon 2010.

Last year I attended a funeral.

That night, a young widow cried in front a casket.  She cried with despair, hurting from unimaginable pain.  She wept with her eyes closed and head down, weakened, desolate.   Her eyes, fixed on the open casket, acknowledged no one else.  The condolences from those arriving went unheard.  She sat there motionless, staring at her lover’s cold, pale body, unreactive to the cries around her or the commotion of those that came to pay their respects and saw the deceased for the first time.  She sat there, with dimmed, dark wet eyes, staring at the casket.   Staring at the casket, in her own silence. A silence that was interrupted by her own hurtful, sudden weeping, brought on perhaps by an unsuspecting memory of their wedding or random night where he professed his love to her.

She yearned for her lover’s warmth, for his breath, for his voice to say her name one more time.  But he laid there, motionless.  Somehow she gathered strength to stand up.  Slowly, with heavy steps, carrying with her the anchor of pain and loss, she approached the casket.  With careful tenderness she caressed his hair, his eyes, his cheeks as she ran her fingers down his face.  Her shaky fingers stopped at his lips, lips that she had kissed thousands of times before, lips that would never again kiss her.  She addressed him, now in his final resting place, uttering words that sometimes we all take for granted or do not say enough.  She told him that she loved him.  And thanked him for making her happy.
But there was no response.

After the funeral, I took my wife home.  The ride home was very somber.  We just held hands and didn’t say much.  We were absorbing everything we had witnessed.  Everything we had learned.  Upon arriving, I opened a bottle of my best wine.  Wine that I had been saving for a very special occasion, our 5th year Anniversary that was still 2 years away.  And I told her that that night we would celebrate we could have dinner together, celebrate that we could hold each other, and that we must be conscious of and appreciate that simple fact.  Appreciate that an “I love you too” can be heard after an “I love you”.

We must not take those we love for granted for we never know when their time has come.
We never know when the last “I love you” has been said.

 She will see him again.   But she will have to wait.  For now, she can only see him in some distant memory on a rainy night.  Or a dream.  Or the clouds.

In the meantime, you and I, we must value, must take advantage of the precious, invaluable ability to call our mothers, our fathers, sisters, brothers.. our soul mate, and tell them that we love them.  Tell them that they mean so much to our lives.  How important they are.  How empty it would be without them.  We must appreciate the fact that when we say such words, we can hear a response…

Unlike that night, that night when a widow cried in front of a casket.
And reaffirmed in me the feeling that
every day and every night is a blessing.

Happy Birthday Seanna!

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Happy Birthday to my sweet Seanna Sofia… Oh Seanna, Seanna Sofia… How I love thee! What gifts you have brought to my world! What a blessing it is to hold you, to put you to sleep, to read to you and hear your laughter! How gracious God has been to us! Thank you Lord for this beautiful, sweet and healthy little angel! Happy Birthday my dearest Seanna! Happy Big 2!

Dear Mama

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Something I wrote many months ago, but never posted.. Don't know why..

The other night I was thinking of Seanna as a grown up. What will she be like? Will she be as attached to daddy as I hope for her to be? Will I be her best friend? Will she call me when she goes off to college? Will she remember me, my words, and my love for her? Those thoughts led me to reflect on my own person as a son to my mother. Do I do those things? Am I a good son? Am I what my mother wanted for me?

Some nights ago, my beloved old lady came to visit us. It had been long since she had seen us because she was abroad, in another continent 3000 miles away doing what she has always done since she was 15: fighting for her family. That night, I had one of those life changing moments where the deep roots of the heart tremble and the soul removes the vines that conceal the wall of memories. That night, as I put my little lady to sleep, in the darkness stood my old lady watching in silence as I hummed a song that she herself used to hum to me when I was a child. She stood there holding one hand to her heart and the other covering her face. She stood there weeping softly, watching her grown son be a father. And she whispered that she used to hum me that song. And as I saw her silhouette, I had that sudden feeling of discovery, of uncovering something profound within, and it came to me, the realization that all of my mom’s hard work had paid off. All the many times I had seen her cry because of the wounds of life, all the times she would come home dragging the anchor of sleeplessness from working two jobs, had beared fruit — There she was standing at the foot of my daughter’s bed as she was falling into sleep, holding on to her little teddy bear with one hand and my hand with her other, comfortable, under warm blankets, at peace.  And I stayed quiet as looked back at my child.  And I realized that my mother had paid the price for me to put my child to sleep with a belly full of milk, a safe environment, her favorite dolls at her side and with a certain future full of opportunities awaiting her.  If it wasn’t because my mother decided to leave the little wooden shack from our native Nicaragua and venture into the unknown while risking it all, I would not be here, with this little piece of my heart and soul sleeping in pure bliss.  No, I would probably be in Nicaragua still.  And who knows in what shape.

I do not know why I didn’t share with her my thoughts or thank her with all the sincerity of my heart.  Instead I stayed quiet, in my thoughts.  There is so much now that I understand.  Now that I have become a father.  Now that I have purpose outside of my own selfishness.  And I thank you mom.  I thank you my dear sweet old lady (for the record, she’s really not old).

Know that the times we have butted heads have been only because you raised a child like yourself — a person who stands up for what he believes in and fights for what is his to gain.  You have always been a fighter.  You still are.  And I still watch you.

Seanna is going places…

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And so it begins…  Her trip into this world.. and eventually out of my arms… out of these arms that long to hold her and carry her for life…  My Seanna.. my sweet Seanna Sofia.. my love, you are growing up too fast.

Today my little lady, my little sweetheart, started to crawl.  And with this, she filled our hearts with aspirations for the places she will be going, of the heights she’ll climb, with us and on her own.  We are happy, elated actually and at the same time aware of that tiny seed of bittersweet sadness that was planted in our hearts and deep in the back of our minds…  Bittersweet because our little lady is growing up and there’s nothing we can do about it.  Soon she’ll be walking, riding her bicycle, going to school and then off to college and into the world… and then one day, one day I’ll be walking her down the aisle.  And perhaps during the reception I’ll be talking about how I remember when she had just started crawling..

Oh my love, my sweet daughter, I pray so much for you.  I pray that God grants us the wisdom to raise you in manner that is pleasing in His eyes.  That we may teach you strength of character.  That we may teach you strong moral values.  And that when tested, because it will come, that you remember us, that you remember that we love you and have the highest of hopes for you.  My sweet Seanna, in you lies the purpose of our lives, the love that we have poured out of us and into you so that you may have all that we didn’t, live as we wished we had, fly higher  and walk farther than we had dared imagine for ourselves.  And may your little feet walk the path of a woman that honors God.  That is my wish for you.   Oh my sweet child, may God give you grace in front of all, bless you abundantly and when the darkness comes in your path, may He light a lamp at your feet and guide you.  Remember that He is in control.  May you, my love child, may you always walk with Him regardless of where you travel…

***If you are viewing this from a phone, click here to view video***

PS –  I always thought that babies would take one little step one day and the another step the next, gradually being able to crawl.  Well, apparently that’s not the case.  Just yesterday I was trying to have her crawl and she wouldn’t.  Then she saw Victor, my little 11 month old nephew crawling and kaboom!  She started crawling a marathon today!