Remembering kith and kin

The families that we are born to are special of course because they are family. But the families that we create as we journey through life are probably more special because they are freely chosen - because they become part of our lives not just by the sheer accident of sharing a gene pool, but because we elect to make them part of our lives.

One of the great things about Christmas (see, I told you I was gonna get into the Christmas spirit eventually) is remembering kith and kin - the people who make our lives worthwhile because of the warmth of the love and affection they provide. And yes, even if they are three timezones away.

Today, I got an email from someone dearly missed. (Sean, I do miss you my dear friend!) What's more, the email came with pictures of him and two other close friends I also miss (Jojo if you are reading this, call me and let's have dinner! Carlo G, good luck with the new house - ayan, may isa pang bahay na pwede ko gawing hotel when I get to visit california). And this got me into a very Christmassy mood - you know, remembering how blessed we are to have in our lives certain people who make our hearts sing even if they are not physically present.

When we were younger, my friends and I would always make it a point to gather in someone else's house for after-Christmas dinner. The main Christmas dinner was celebrated with our immediate families - but we would always rush to our "other Christmas dinner," this time with our very close friends. This was our other family - and it was in this company that we truly felt the spirit of the season - no pressures that somehow always come with family reunions, no embarrassing questions and answers, no overt efforts to fit in and belong. Within our circle of friends, we had quiet conversations around the dinner table, we traded wishes and stories and simply relaxed in the warmth that only real friends can provide.

Let's not forget what Christmas is all about - it is about kith and kin. From my house to yours, Happy Holidays!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Open Letter To Our Leaders

Dear Tita Cory, Senators, Congressmen, Businessmen, Media people, Leftists, and all Bleeding Hearts Out There: I am angry. And I know that there are many out there who are angrier than I am for the same reason. And that reason is simple. I am sick and tired of all you guys claiming to speak for me and many Filipinos. I feel like screaming every time you mouth words about fighting for my freedom and my rights, when you obviously are just thinking about yours. You tell me that the essence of democracy is providing every citizen the right to speak his or her mind and make his or her own informed judgments, but you yourselves do not respect my silence and the choices I and many others have made. In other words, your concept of democracy is limited to having your rights and your freedoms respected, at the expense of ours. I am utterly flabbergasted that you still do not get it: we already responded to your calls, and our response has been very clear - we chose not to heed your calls to go t
Read more

Farewell, Victor

Image
This is my column today. Renato Victor Ebarle Jr. was at the prime of his life; barely 27 years old and just starting to build his career in human resource management. At the time of his death, he was recruitment manager of the Hotel Peninsula Manila. To say that he still had the whole world ahead of him sounds like a cliché but those among us who actually knew him, those among us who were aware of the kind of passion he had for life and for his work, people like me who had the privilege of having been consulted by him on many professional matters, know this with a certain degree of certainty. I was Victor’s professor in three major subjects when he was in college. In each one of them, he sat at the first row, which said a lot about the kind of person he was. Professors know this for a fact: Bullies don’t sit in front of the class where they cannot annoy anyone. I was his thesis adviser and he and his team spent a whole academic school year trying to break new grounds on the question o
Read more

How That Letter Came To Be...

I had some time in my hands last night. I bloghopped. For the very first time I got to read in detail what people are saying about that letter and about me in other blogs. I have already responded to most of the comments in this blog. However, I cannot possibly answer all comments given that I have only ten fingers and there are only 24 hours in a day. It is very tempting, but this blog is not my life and contrary to the overactive imagination of some people, I do not have the resources to do that. I cannot possibly monitor the thousands of blogs out there. Besides, the comments in this and other blogs (and even in the newspapers) do tend to answer each other, and I do not fancy myself as an ultimate arbiter or judge with the final and definitive opinion (I do not think anyone is qualified to do that unless that person died on a cross and resurrected in three days), so there is really not much to say after reading the various pros and cons. Some people do a better job at it anyway. I d
Read more