Correspondence

Well guys, glad to be back here again after this very very exhausting weekend. I am glad I was off yesterday and was actually a little bit homey and relaxed.

Yet, I have a lot of things in my mind to accomplish lately, like calling my maternal aunt, which is my mom's cousin, who happened to be living in San Bernardino County, which I still need to call and thank for her little help or donation for my mom's wake and burial.

It's been too late to thank her and I am a little bit embarrassed to call her. And I have no choice but to swallow my own personal pride because I really need to do this to clear up my reputation for having been branded as ungrateful.

And if ever I will let this pass up, especially for a very long period of time, then I will be more liable to being branded and dubbed as an ingrate person. And I don't want that to happen, either.

It is my utmost responsibility to notify her that I got the help and of course tell her that I am very grateful for the unexpected and sincere help or assistance she extended to my family, though how big or small it was.

I was kinda hesitant to dial her number at first but I did it anyway. Initially, my second cousin Kevin answered it and he then recognized me right away.

After a brief "hi" and "hello" and a little chit-chat and update of each other's lives, I asked him to give me my aunt's celfone number. He immediately gave it to me, then I called my aunt after that.

It was been almost four years that I haven't called my immediate family around here in Los Angeles and the nearby Long Beach area, although I have a lot of aunts and uncles around the area, yet this specific aunt of mine was been very very close to me.

She always visited me at the hospital in 2004 when I was helplessly lying on the hospital bed after I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's disease.

She dedicatedly encouraged me all the time to fight the bitter test of life for me and prayed for my immediate recovery. She especially watched and took care of me during those sad times I had. So I felt a little pang of guilt in me to call her up, yet I am very hopeful she will understand.

After they moved to San Bernardino County from San Fernando Valley four years ago, I lost contact with her and her family because they changed their home and mobile numbers.

Good thing there is this famous network site called Facebook who can bridged people all around the globe. When I saw my cousin's profile on Facebook I messaged them immediately asking their whereabouts.

Then everything happened in flash suddenly, especially with my life, starting from my mom's lost until my long vacation back to the Philippines because of her wake and burial preparations, which even prolonged my grieving process.

Then when, I came back here in Los Angeles, I never had the chance to correspond to them because I have to settle back with my life and work first and get myself a little organized and stabilized after that.

Now that I got everything in order, I finally made the very important decision to call and get in touch with everybody who were so close and dear to me and correspond to them as soon as possible, thanking them for their unselfish help, though how big or small were they, and their fervent prayers in times of my family's extreme sorrow, pain, and grief.

So, I immediately dialed my aunt's celfone number and she answered it after three rings. I said hi to her and she immediately recognized my voice, masked with the advent of flu symptoms, on the other line.

I asked her if how she was doing lately and then everything started from there.

I can really feel how happy and excited she was hearing from me and about the news I brought from our hometown. She was also a little empathic and sympathetic about our recent family lost.

We talked a lot of things about family, friends, our hometown, work, life, kids, and other things......... everything under the sun. And we talked for a very long long time...........

I updated her everything about what's going on with my life and how I pulled through with my own life after mom's passing.

I told her that I am fine now and quite stable and settled in my life and in my job. I was very very ecstatic though to hear and talk to her on the phone and to listen to her own account and story about thriving and surviving life.

She told me apparently, that she was kind of in a heavy bind about surviving life, especially in this recession induced situation of our country.

She hesitantly told me that my uncle was been laid-off from work for a couple of months already and that she had a hard time meeting both ends meet, now that she's the only one working for the whole family and was acting as the sole breadwinner.

I just lend her a very intent and listening ear and helped her vent out her frustrations and anxiety about life.

Then she told me after that, that she felt real good now that she was venting and talking to me about her personal problems. I just consoled her on the other line. I was so helpless that moment and don't know much what to do to help her but to listen to her very intently.

She also told me about one of her sister, my other aunt in Guam, who also was struggling keeping up with her strained relationship with my uncle who just came back from Iraq and was diagnosed with a post Gulf War syndrome.

She told me that the poor guy almost hit my aunt and hurt the whole family. They immediately seek psychiatric attention for him and struggled to maintain their marriage in good standing because the state had already intervened in the battle for the children's custody.

I was so saddened about the bad news that happened to my other aunt, and I was hoping everything will be taken cared of now that they got an expert help from a very notable attorney.

It was a very long time that I haven't keep up  with my immediate family from my mom's. And now all the needed facts and news I needed to gather and hear were all piled up for a long long time and it's hard to catch up with them and too much to bear especially that most of them comprised of almost the bad news rather than the happy news.

On the lighter note though, I got a facebook message from my other aunt in Hawaii, my mom's first cousin also, inviting me for my second cousin's wedding in Las Vegas next Spring in April. And that she wanted it to be a big family reunion with all my aunts and uncles all over the country so she was asking me if I happen to have some of their phones, emails, celfones, websites, URLs and other means of contacts so that she can connect with them and invite them while it is still early.

I gave send her whatever information I had about all our immediate families I had, here in the United States, from my files, phone books, and personal lists. And she was very thankful about all the information I had send her.

I was expecting and  foreseeing a very big and happy family reunion that will happen next year. I can't wait to see all of my immediate family and present myself on behalf of my dear parents.

For sure it will be a good and merry celebration especially reconnecting with the lost times that I did not spent with my immediate families while I was growing up away from them.

I just can't wait to see when that happens. Yay.........