1

I am a Martial Law baby. Of all the memories of growing up during the Marcos dictatorship --the good (much credit to my parents), the bad and the bloody--there are three definitive ones and to this day reverberate in me when I mull on what it's like to be a Filipino and woman of the 21st century.

One is on the day Ninoy Aquino was assassinated in 1983: Lunchtime, high noon, the sun bright white and hot through the screens of our dining room window. My father and mother talk in angry tones I have never heard before--restrained and piercing. Our transistor blares AM radio political editorials that sounded as upset as they are. It is that day that I first became aware of such a thing as unrest.

Two is during the the snap presidential election between Marcos and the widowed Cory Aquino. That is when at age 10, I first felt the pang of moral outrage when I became the center of classroom mockery and got called a communist by kids (lead on by a pro-Marcos teacher) whose parents happen to have bought into the smear epithets of the Marcos campaign against Ninoy's widow: She is not fit to be President because she is a woman. Women are weak. Women are soft. It is not a woman's place to run the highest office in the land. She is a mere housewife. Yes, there is also Imelda calling on her lack of qualifications based on her lack of make-up and a manicure.

Three, is one very late February night in '86. My parents are listening in vigil to their radio on what was happening over in Manila, while my sister, Pinky is reading and answering crosswords, stationed in front of our rundown AM/FM cassette player by the window out on the hall. I feign sleep, staring out my open bedroom door at the lighted hallway of our old BISCOM home, attuned in to it all. Then my mother, excitement in her voice, comes out to tell my sister to switch stations. "Aw-right!" my sister exclaims as she caught the breaking news of the Marcoses leaving the presidential palace. Soon both my parents mill out of their room and into mine. I pretend to be awakened as they gave me and my sister a hug and a kiss. On the radio we can hear reports filter in of a whole country rejoice in freedom while my mother offers to make me glass of milk.

Last August 1, 2009, twenty days before the death anniversary of her beloved Ninoy, a nation has lost it's icon, mother figure and treasure in Corazon C. Aquino. Today August 5, 2009 we bury her beside her husband, the only other person of our time to equal her in charisma, virtue and fortitude. What a day it is. What is left to say that hasn't been said. What greatness. What legacy--all in a sea of yellow.

The Flower Boy and the Three-Day Revolution

“The tanks are coming!” howled a teenager from his lookout on top of a lamp post

A while ago, I was in a children’s party in the streets of EDSA. I helped blow candles with the birthday boy who I just met today along with his Mama.

EDSA on normal days, was jammed with cars, buses and jeepneys. They had been replaced by nuns, priest, students, teachers and families. Dressed in an old T-shirt, shorts and rubber sandals, I rushed here with my grandparents. We came because of the Cardinal’s message on the radio to give support to the rebel soldiers in Camp Crame who protested the widespread cheating during the recent election for president.

“ Isaac, apo, President Marcos will have them arrested if we don’t help,” Lolo Mikoy , said,“Twenty years of injustice is enough.”

Lolo Mikoy’s brow furrowed like it would when he and Lola Mansay talked about the bad happenings in our country. How I wished I could take away those worried looks on their faces. It made me so sad but, what could I do? I was only a boy.

In EDSA, guitars strummed and people sang, danced and prayed. Packed lunches, sandwiches, juices and birthday cake were passed around. Even with the barricades of sandbags and barbed wire, it was like a fiesta.

The tanks came and, shook the ground like metal monsters carrying soldiers with armalite rifles. Grenades hung from their pockets and bullet belts looped around their bodies from head to foot. Lola pulled me between her and Lolo. I tried not to cry for their sake.

The nuns and priest lead us to kneel in prayer. The soldiers drew closer. The singing and chanting grew louder. Arm in arm, people stood in the tanks’ path.

“ We are unarmed. We want only peace!” voices exclaimed. ”We are all Filipinos! We are all God’s children!”

The machines halted. Soldiers jumped off and stood before us without a word. Their general blared from his megaphone, “Back off !“

No one budged.

I glanced at the sunflower in my hand that a nun had handed me earlier. It was now or never. I walked towards a soldier whose gun was taller than I was. My legs felt like stones with every step. I did not hear my grandparents call after me. My heart thumped louder and faster then suddenly, stopped. For that second, I forgot to be afraid. I raised up the yellow blossom and said,“Peace be with you, sir.”

"Thank you son,” a deep voice said under the helmet. He pointed his gun down and leaned over to ruffle my hair as he accepted the flower .

“My Lola made my favorite chicken-pork adobo on rice. Do you want some? Are you hungry?” I said. "There's cake too cause it's my friend's birthday!"

The tanks left with the soldiers wearing garlands around their necks, flowers on their guns, food in their tummies and people’s cheers in their ears. That night, I huddled with other children on mats spread on the sidewalk while grownups lit candles and kept vigil.

The next day, we went to Camp Crame. From my grandfather’s shoulders, I spied dark spots in the sky. Helicopters! Their guns were pointed our way. They blotted the morning sun as they flew close. People crouched down sobbing and praying. Giant blades brought loud winds that nearly blew us away. I wiggled from underneath my grandparents to put my arms over their shoulders, when I spied a white flag waving from one of the chopper. Look everyone!

The helicopters landed. Soldiers wearing yellow ribbons around their arms spilled out and were met with tearful hugs and cheers .

When night came, I spotted a familiar lady dressed in yellow with kind eyes singing Ave Maria from across the crowd that had swollen day by day. She smiled warmly at me as I tried not to fall asleep.

The third day, went like a blur. In the evening, I was awakened by loud rejoicing from the crowd. News swept of Marcos leaving the country. Cory Aquino, the lady in yellow, was to be the new president. Tired and sleepy in Lolo’s arms, I listened to people sing, Bayan Ko (My Country).

“Pugad ng luha at dalita, aking adhika makita kang sakdal laya (Cradle of my tears and poverty, I’ll aspire to see you truly free).”

In my dreams, I could still hear the words mingle with Lolo and Lola’s laughter.

25

MICHAEL JACKSON HAS DIED. Those were the words I heard as I stumbled from the bathroom to bedroom where Brian Williams broke the news in a voice that was both calm and stricken. I sat down for a second only to fail at absorbing what was unfolding on the TV before me then I rushed downstairs, running late for work and forgetting my wallet.

THE KING OF POP HAS PASSED AWAY. Outside, the world moved and weaved through traffic in slow motion. From every car, his songs emanated from each open windows as every radio station of every genre it seemed, scrambled to change their programming to include Michael Jackson songs. The kind girl at the I-95 toll booth who let me through even with a dollar short of the fee, had something from Off The Wall blaring from her station, while the DC rock station I'd listen to going to work, played Wanna Be Starting Something & Dirty Diana and was taking more requests of the like.

PETER PAN IS GONE. Gone is that mythical human being who conquered the world with talent and moves that both defied gravity and gravitated the emulation and adulation of a generation from California to Calumanggan. That precious little boy with the gigantic gift in those filler films from 70's TV specials; that angelic voice who signaled the coming of the Season by his urgings to give love on Christmas Day, who became the world's golden child, can now only be revisited in the grainy, jumpy annals of YouTube and our sepia-hued memories. He is the idol we vaunted in childish braggadocio in dusty neighborhood streets in the weekends and summers, in flooded school halls after a typhoon, and in the classroom when Ma'am Sultan or Ma'am Alcachupas was looking away. He is the MJ I'd scribble in slumbook questions about first crushes. He is the superstar that my sister, Pinky regaled me with factoids she'd read about and known way back when he was in Jackson 5, which jumpstarted my ardour for him. He is the pop phenomenon my sister Melissa made a reverential scrapbook for, with clippings from the TIMEs and tabloids our Auntie Letty sent us from Canada and from "songhits" she has collected, which I eventually inherited. He is the teen idol whose posters Melissa put up on my wall in the bedroom we shared when we first moved to BISCOM. Meanwhile, the rest of the world went through the same adoration that I felt solely was my own, in varying manifestations, in similar degrees of awe. He had no color, no race, no nationality. There was nobody like him, yet he belonged to all of us. He was just Michael.

R.I.P., MAN IN THE MIRROR. Somebody in Facebook bade farewell, one of millions in a matter of minutes after the news broke. Admittedly, I despised the his transmogrification after Thriller. In the years leading to his death, he seemed to have devolved from Hero to the Hunchback of Notre Dame. His music, genius and even the moonwalk never waned but it was us who changed. We grew up. Worst of all, it was our image of him that changed and we turned on him. We marched to his bell tower where he dangled Baby Blanket with torches, tabloids, TMZ and even with doves released after a trial. How we pitied him and his bizarre sad life, and how dare he defaced the Michael who lit gritty city streets with every step in Billie Jean and electrified us with this.

AND NOW MICHAEL JACKSON IS DEAD. We try to wrap our head around a world without this icon of our lifetime. We are getting old. Like Elvis before him, we will share his music and stories of what made him great and precautionary tales of extraordinary individuals with feet of clay. And he will win over generations more of fans and followers even after death. He will live forever in our general psyches in the image we chose to remember him by. In every soundtrack that punctuate the moments. In every lazy summer afternoons of childhood dreaming big dreams listening to Jackson 5 on AM radio. In every fond memory of our lives. That's how icons are.  

As I'm writing the end of this post, Janet is on the BET Awards both thanking & expressing the pain of the loss of a brother, then Ne-yo & Jamie Foxx sing, I'll Be There....

THANK YOU SO MUCH, MICHAEL. 

P.S. Here are far more evocative tributes from friends & writing idols from the web: Shivaun, Jessica Zafra,   and Jay Harvey.  

And the far more eloquent, Anna and Hortense of Jezebel.

ultraelectromagneticbandlove

I am a week or so behind blogging about the Oscars or as I call it, MY Super Bowl (and I did bring out the chips and the spinach dip). Despite my excitement last year, Watchmen is here, anatomically correct cerulean blue man-thing and all, blah, blah, blah. For the time being I leave the Hollywoods snark to Jezebel & my FB friend Jay Harvey; the fanboy vs. literati discourse to the Vultures and; the clever sentiment-veiled barbs to my friend, Shivaun. I am even laying aside the ton of figurative and rather literal crap I have to get over with before I fly off for the familiar, comforting shores of home.

The greatest part of being indubitably, viscerally a Pinoy of my generation-- progeny of the Martial Law years, Marcos despotism and stabs of a fledgling republic at democracy gone invariably bananas-- is to lay claim to the Eraserheads as our soundtrack, mouthpiece and badge of honor. Within the same month of August '08 while I was taking in the third year of the US Virgin Fest, the iconic band that defined the Pinoy cool held a much attended reunion concert with as much drama as the events that lead to its realization, overtaken only by the syncopal episode of lead singer, Ely ("the One Who Got Away") Buendia that became it's culmination or rather lack of.

I have gushed about this band before and I have no plans on stopping whenever the chance arises. Now, in honor of their Last Set that's held on this date, I dedicate this to a beloved band and cultural touchstone. As I eschew assignments, nursing marathons, chores & clogged toilets, I, like many proud Flips away from home and can not be there to sing along & cheer on Messrs. Buendia, Marasigan, Zabala & Adoro, content myself with footage of the night the E-heads are together again in You Tube posterity. 

Of course there will always be memories of them at the Hard Rock Cafe in Singapore--Ely wiping his sweat with my hankie; Buddy politely refusing it cause he has a cold; surprisingly appealing eye contact with Marcus and; Raymond leaving us in stitches with enunciations of "Hah-rrd Rahk Kah-peeh!" Pakiusap lang sana hindi ito ang huling El Bimbo, please lang.

P.S. Rest in Peace Francis M. And maraming salamat po.

Super Bowl Commercials

Okay, okay I must admit that I have skipped this year's All-American tradition to watch an ANTM Obsessed marathon on Oxygen, despite a sentimental connection with a much loved former mentor, who's been a resolute Yellow/White/Black speck in a sea of Purple Friday fanatics. I've known the Steelers were going to win in dramatic a fashion for that's the Steelers. My growing and  rather hard-won sports zeal has been anti-climactic with the Ravens' loss to Pittsburgh for the AFC championship. Oh well, from abysmal and laughable, to a head-to-head with a Super Bowl champ, isn't bad at all for rookie Joe Flacco and Coach Harbaugh. Not quite the Cinderella story yet but, there is always next year for a Purple Reign. So there, that's as far as I can go for sports. Coming from me, thats quite much.

My own motivation on Super Bowl Sundays sit-thrus have always been the commercials. This year I rather watch them online instead of foregoing bathroom breaks. The Doritos and the booze commercials (leather clad Conan, yay!) get the laughs but I go for expensive sentimental shit like the Pepsi commercial featuring a young Bob Dylan in full Gaslight glory. It invokes the same feelings watching those Pepsi ads of the Berlin Wall crumbling and the I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing Coke ads in childhood. My waistline and the back of my thighs have sworn off soda's but, thanks for bookmarking history happening in my lifetime, corporate titans.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

To simpler times and the enduring wisdom of Peanuts...

ANG YAYA NI ZUMA

 Click here to connect to No Doubt official website

Somehow in the last three of the alphabet generations, a girl is never just a girl until she (even remotely) admires Gwen Stefani or, emulates Gwen Stefani, or wants to be like Gwen Stefani, or mentally befriends Gwen Stefani or, dye her hair pink like Gwen Stefani or, projects conjurations of girlish dreams acquired and evolved by the years, through Gwen Stefani. It is not Gwen Stefani's world that we happen to live in. It is a world where a girl wouldn't mind being Gwen Stefani. She is the every-girl Malkovich. This is further compounded by that gorgeous hubs of hers. Like who wouldn't do THAT? Even so after all these years, one can not help but be vicariously titillated by thought of her and Tony Kanal. There are Sid-and-Nancys, Cobains-and-Loves and Fleetwood Macs but Stefani and Kanal are the Julia & Richard, the Tom & Meg of rock--adorable in fantasy, but they're probably better off and far less dysfunctional as friends. 

After years of hits, personal anthems, pop forays, fashion spreads, fragrance lines and genetically endowed offsprings No Doubt of the Orange County is to reunite for a world tour. It is not the Beatles reunion, or the end of wars, or the splitting of the atom but it comes in really fierce heels.

So in honor, here's hoping they play this song. It is my personal soundtrack for all couple-ly buffoons who like to ram couple-dom and all its saccharine glory down my throat and such a manner couple-righteously so.

Bringin' Bitches Back

In the cusp of Hillary Clinton becoming Secretary of State, this is in honor of a role model or in this clip, three. After 18 million cracks at that glass ceiling, here's to hoping at running down the walls of a world where this is nothing but for women.

And thank you too, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. You called it last February. You said it all.

Enough Said.

November 4, 2008 11:00 PM EST. Two beautiful, poignant speeches. One historic night. One day we ALL thought we would never get to see in our lifetimes. John McCain concession speech in Arizona.

Barack Obama acceptance speech in Grant Park.

"And here we go..."

Click on link for The Dark Knight's box-office news.

This pretty much encapsulates why I wanted to kick myself for not booking at Fandango for the midnight screenings in advance specially in the face of "artsy" Starbucks-cashier-girl-taking-my-latte-order gloating through her piercings that she had hers a week before. TEN THEATERS at the AMC Lowes ALL SOLD OUT. I thought my blue state suburban corner in the East Coast would be immune to an albeit foreseen phenomenon rampaging the major cities of this country. Damn it.

Anyway, I did get to watch it at 10AM. Bright & early (for me). Front & center. Close enough to count Ledger's pores. Enough to get slobbered by his Joker as he licked his gashed maw and even taste the salt & metal of sweat and blood from a wound that never scabbed over. To get totaled by an exploding truck in trajectory. To snigger at nurse Joker sharing a hairstyle curl for curl & the exact shade of red with someone I work with. Enough to feel the loss of him rubbed into the psyche.

I need to sleep. Maybe I can think up a better written review. 

And fuck you Dr. Zahiri. (Totally unrelated, btw). 

CONSIDER MY ASS LOCKED INTO THAT THEATRE SEAT

I am having one major geek-out right now right now after happening upon this clip during my somewhat pointless wanderings into Perez Hilton but WTF. The sound is atrocious. The video quality is shotgun. But 10 seconds into this 5-minute clip of the opening scene of Dark Knight I have found myself trying to stop the spontaneous drool from spilling out of my awestruck maw onto my long-suffering Mac's keyboard while declaring, "Oh my God, I so have got to see this movie!!!!"

Heath Ledger is officially a deity and with SO MUCH LOVE, as the Joker, is one crazy motherfucker. My heart aches. My soul cries. Hope you're happy surfing heaven's Bondi, mate!

Click on link to movie website. Now, lemme go to Fandango. Or maybe I can harass the nice people at the Maryland Science Center if they're showing this on IMAX.

28

What is it about death? What is it about dying young? Beauty, brilliance, and promise cut short, gone way too soon? Why does the loss throw us into a confounding sadness and endless questions? Banal, existential to the just plain tabloid. The whys and the what ifs.

He was blond and built yet defied cliched stardom routes. His portrayal of the cinematic square-jawed, mono-drawling Western hero embodied every celebrated big-screen tradition then threw it out the window unto the faces of Rev. Phelps and his ilk and our own closeted biases in HD-colored heartbreak. The fact that he was chosen to play the Joker, a role immortalized in stone by Nicholson speaks volumes on his gifts. Many people were enamored by him as the golden boy in 10 Things or A Knight's Tale but I chose to remember him on the silver screen as the tragic Southern boy, the loving and unloved son in Monster's Ball. Or far better as just him as the head of one beautiful young family running errands on the streets of New York caught for posterity by nosey paparazzi lenses.

For most of us he might be the last person we expected to be in the six o'clock news rolled out in a gurney, wrapped in a body bag so early into a new year, a blooming career, parenthood. Just early on in general.

Heath Ledger, actor, leading man, lover, artist, son and father is dead. To paraphrase a quote about another loss of another golden Wunderkind (this time from music), we have barely begun to grasp how much he shall be missed.

one big reason why john lennon is a genius and a prophet and why we've barely scratched the surface of his divine brilliance

December is the month of John Lennon's death anniversary. Decades after this song came out, the words & music of this great man has never been more painfully true.

"A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

We hope it's a good one..."

Thank you Sir John. So much.

september ends II

THANK YOU, FLEA
Originally uploaded by cjbando

Last September of 2006, I had the two most surreal extremes in one week. On September 23 I got to witness the Chili Peppers and the Who in the first ever US Virgin Fest. On the 24th, I flew to Toronto to watch, along with my sister, my most beloved band in concert on the 25th. The day after, one of the happiest nights of my life became one of the saddest. On September 26 I found out my dear friend, Puppy had passed away in most tragic circumstances.

Finally after a year of respect for the memory of a friend, I have finally had the gall and the time to post that one hot minute of sheer happiness before I come tumbling down into a bawling, mourning heap. This post is a loving tribute to love, to a band I love so much it hurts and to a friend I love like family.

Once upon a time in this girl's life, in a Dragon Mansion in the Spottiswoodes of the Lion City, a Puppy named Maribel sees me off, along with our friend Christine, to my first rock show at the Hard Rock with the best advice for a rock fan ever: bring a handkerchief for an Eraserhead to wipe his sweat with. The hankie is still tucked away in my journal at my childhood bedroom, still permeating with Ely Buendia's cologne. Thank you and I love you, Pup. It still hurts.

2Pac reconnection

Once again in an insomniac state and glued to VH1, I come across the Rock Doc, Tupac Resurrection.

Back in the day, I had gotten wind of Tupac Shakur through a TV feature on Poetic Justice, some US Billboard video show or, a some sneak peek show on movies showing in the States that would likely end up in either limited distribution in my shores or, straight to pirated VHS or Betamax after losing out to Sharon Cuneta commerce. Some time later I found out through my aunt's padala of People Magazine, his performance was better-received by critics than Janet Jackson's debut, and I gathered that he was also a rapper and a post-Rodney King era icon.

Now, I do not claim to be well-versed with his discography. The only song of his that I am truly familiar with and, happens to be a favorite, is California Love which I first heard though Rick Dees Weekly Top 40. Very edgy.

The cool kids of La Salle talked about him on rotation along with all the other MTV idols of that era because they can afford cable TV. I could only get to watch cable then while waiting for my take-out of inasal chitlins (bul-o & tina-e) and 2-peso serving of rice at Nonoy's Barbecue outside the old Era Theater. I did sense he was a figure of reckoning, spinning out of control towards immortality, a fact that escaped most of the Giordano-clad whose hero-worship of him and of Vedder, Cobain et. al. were wielded like Benetton bags. Along with irony.

I learned he spent a good part of his childhood in Baltimore and was classmates with Jada Pinkett in a local performing arts school. He thought Madonna was a nice person and so was Tony Danza. Janet Jackson's people asked him to get an AIDS test before a big love scene. He liked Don Mclean. Like any self-respecting art-school geek, he read Shakespeare. The late Gene Siskel was a fan of his.

As I was choosing a picture for this blog, I could not help but choose the image above though, I was spoiled with choices of him shirtless, ripped, and in deep thought. I'd seen it before maybe from People (of course) and it stayed in my psyche. He just seemed so calm here yet his eyes look like he was about to explode and not to mention, so young.

The documentary, featured him as how both his adoring and detractors remember him. Young, charismatic, arrogant, volatile and fiercely beautiful. His ideals, his passion, his liasons, his rawest emotion, were not merely worn on his sleeve. It was tattooed, pierced and cocked like a loaded gun. Like every cursed and tragic spokesperson of a generation, he shall never grow old--an heirloom of youthful rebellion to be passed on to the next in line. Hard to imagine him beyond 25. No great comebacks. No tour de force at Madison Square. No Oscars. No T-Mobile endorsements. No collaborations with 50 or Kanye or JT. No Live-Aid reconciliations with the former Puff Daddy and and Biggie. Even turning 30 or 40. 

He shall and always will be Tupac.

For my friend Shivaun.

For My Ashton

This may be a foray into the superficial, but fuck it, I dare say.

To my knight in shining armour and loyal steed, you had protected me and served me well. To my friend and confidant, you had been the quite spectator to my madness, my goofs and my guffaws, my rage and my tears. When I was not welcome in my own hearth and home you were my refuge during the winter chill, so valiantly trying not to let dissipate too quickly your waning heat. My co-conspirator, you had taken me to haunts of my longings, encouraged my obsession with independence. You had seen me stumble through naivete to thriving street smarts. Throughout all these you never judged even when I crashed and slammed you and forgotten where I last left you. You just kept driving on, dings, scratches and gashes and all. And when I called for you to know where you were, you said, "I'm right here, mama," You had far more character in your clunky metal heart than any of my fair-weather friends.Through sun & rain & snow you plodded and pulled through at my behest. You shared my journey with me complete with a soundtrack provided by you, and what a trip it had been my dear friend.




Now, I must give you up. I am not rejecting you and trading you for a newer model. I am setting you free. May my new John-john be as half as wonderful as you are. I shall always look for you when I am on the road. I will always wonder where you are. With a prayer, I wish you will have another who will treat you with as much care as you have of me and will treat you for the beautiful thing that you are, my baby, my blessing. Thank you, thank you, thank you, a thousand times, THANK YOU.


Always remember, that no one ever forgets their first.

September Ends

Numb. I try not too feel too much for fear I might spontaneously combust. I drown myself in the tides of the everyday, yet find myself skimming the surface adrift, lifeless but awake and moving, functioning like a wind-up drone. Can I crawl into a ball in a corner? Can I cry my eyes out? Can I scream my head off? Can I mourn?

Can I mourn the loss of yet another uncle? Can I reach out to yet another of my own blood for the loss of their father? Can I comfort yet another parent for the loss of her brother. Can I myself lament the loss of more than a relative, but a kindred spirit in the love of books and the arcane as much as the first loss was a kindred in love of laughter and child-like irreverence and beyond that-- a primal recognition and an innate understanding that these are one of your own? Can I cry that the world seems a little bit lonelier place for those very losses? Can I cry for the dwindling of childhood and care-free times? or how about for fathers who will never be able to see the fruition of their dreams for their offspring?

Can I bewail the untimely loss of a dear friend? Does it help if she is like family? Would it warrant your sympathy, if I tell you
in one point in our lives we shared an apartment, a room, a journey? or how we laughed away our angsts over work, homesickness and unrequited love and how they are forever encapsulated in photographs, in stories, in memories as vivid as now? So vivid, it's sooo fuckin' hard to believe she's gone. The great ceremony of a home-cooked meal. The passion for the blend of flavors. The singing. In the kitchen. While doing the laundry. Looking out the window awaiting for birthday mail. During innumerable karaoke nights. The mythic birthday parties. The dancing. The tears for missing home and over a Judy Ann flick. The leche flan. The epic debate over Ben vs. Noel. The inebriated nights over Boon Kwe Lew Chew. The quotes worth repeating but shall always be her own. She told me too grow my hair long and that love will come in its own time. And so it did for her in her own terms and in a fashion entirely hers. How she doted on her nephews then. Now we could only imagine how she could have been as the mother that she dreamed to be to her much sought for child. We, your friends could only attempt to replicate your affections for him but we could never be you. Cause there could be only one like you, Puppy. The memories would always be vivid as your soliloquies and for every memory we would mourn.


Finally, can I mourn for every time I'm in a church I light a candle for the people I love, my family and friends, that they may be around to share this life with me a little longer? including these very people? Can I pray that I do not question the designs
of a Higher Power and that there is a reason for everything and just keep on lighting more candles?


Video: My Friends, Red Hot Chili Peppers, One Hot Minute, 1995.