Sina Mai, Chris at Julie: AMAZING!

Rye to Chris (via sms) : "Tapos na ni Julie yung "Lately". Ang susunod daw nyang project, Chris & Rye duet :-)"

Chris to Rye (via sms) : "I love it! Looking forward with matching excitement on the side."

Thank you, Julie. Life with you is a never-ending downpour of creative rain from the heavens.
-o0o-

The way my brother, Mai, has matured over the past 6 months truly amazes me. He CHOSE to leave his not-affluent-but-already-comfortable life in Manila hoping to find means to make our mom's life even more comfortable. But he didn't find what he was looking for at once. He went through extreme poverty and danger. There were times when I didn't know which to ask God to bless him with first: a job, or enough strength so that he may not be defeated by self-pity.

If the past six months was a test of his faith and determination, he deserves an exemption from the next tests Life has to offer. If it was his own way to prove us wrong when we didn't want him to go and we thought he might come back home a big failure with an enormous load of debts on our shoulders, we humbly but delightfully admit now that we were wrong.

I remember when we were kids, all Mai really wished for was to have little metal nuggets attached to his teeth. He found it posh and cute. Our family dentist thought he was too young to have those. In high school, he discovered they were called "braces" and he just wanted them even more. But that time, our family wasn't doing well financially anymore and we couldn't afford it.

Now, he has them. And they came from his hard-earned (super hard-earned, I must say) first paycheck that was 5 months in the making. 5 months, god-knows-how-many buckets of tears, never-ending prayers, and tremendous amounts of faith, hope, determination, courage and strength. I saw the picture that he posted on Friendster (which can be found on the right) that he captioned "John Robert Powers smile". I'm still thinking of a cuter, wittier caption I could suggest to him to replace that with. I'm sure Remi would suggest "Smile of Success". And she'd be proud that Mai was able to afford his braces without bugging her for a cent. He deserves that reward more than he thinks. And thank heavens for his braces, he has finally him lose some weight.

-o0o-

Chris has arrived.

Just before I started writing this entry, I saw his comments on "Rainy Day As It Should Be" and "On Being Busy (Or Otherwise)" on Multiply. His comment on "Rainy.." was touching. It was a delight for me to receive and read it.

His comment on "Being Busy.." was cute! Copied-and-apsted from my Multiply account:

"on being busy" ...... im coming over right now w/a bottle of vodka..... see u in 30mins.

And so here he is now, in less than 30 minutes, right after I talked to Dan about how amazed I am at how more coherent Chris's wiritng is than mine and yet he remains inferior about that skill of his, fixing our drinks for the night.

-o0o-

Julie wrote her "Ode To My Bunion" http://juliecarretas.multiply.com/journal/item/4?mark_read=juliecarretas:journal:4&replies_read=1. Beautiful is such an understatement for her written composition. She is just something else! She dances, teaches, choreographs, cooks, sings and writes. And she does everything with so much passion and panache.

Amazing!

-o0o-

I am experiencing a scarcity of adjectives as I write this entry. Amazing seems to be my word for the day.