Last night my wife and I attended a birthday party of our daughter’s classmate and friend. These two girls got to know each other since about 5 years ago when they were still in high school. They both love to draw and sketch anime and that became their common interest until now. Their moms became good friends too for a good number of years now and it’s interesting because we all get to see each other during cosplays, high school graduation, college events or birthday celebrations and the like. They get to visit our home and we visit their home too.

Animation and IT Students

Now that they’re both in college taking up Animation, their circle of friends have expanded to include more classmates and friends who also are into anime, cosplays, digital artwork and  video games. And we get to join these kids on some occasions like cosplays, school events or when they do their school projects at home.

My daughter seems to be enjoying her college life with her circle of friends and it’s good to see their friendly relationships develop over the years. And isn’t this what the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all about? God is love. He is interested in relationships. He wants to have a relationship with each one of us. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit want to include us into their inner circle of friends. They want to include us into their life and love. They want us to enjoy loving relationships with them throughout all eternity. They want us to be happy with and among friends in loving relationships. Isn’t that great?

This love for friends—this friendly relationships come from God through Jesus Christ. It doesn’t originate from us. God shares his love to us that is why we enjoy friendships. That is why we enjoy relationships. God’s love is expressed through our ordinary human interaction with each other like getting together on  a birthday party or just spending time together. From before the beginning of time, it’s been God’s plan all along to include all of us—all of humanity—into the divine life and love enjoyed by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for all eternity. Isn’t that wonderful!

Last night, my wife and I were invited to the18th birthday of one of my nieces. It was a great opportunity to get to see my relatives once again on my mother’s side as I am not able to see them often.

Time really flies. It used to be that my cousins and I were the young ones—the teenagers. Now, we have become the elderly folks. Such is life. It was therefore a great time to get in touch with my cousins again and also to get to know my nephews and nieces who up to this time, I really don’t know much yet about them. I hope to get to know each one of them more and more as we get to see each other more often.

I was glad to attend Cheslie’s debut who turned 18 last night. She’s the only daughter of one of my first cousins, Luisa. It was a special night for her and we all shared in the joy and the fun during that night. Many of her classmates in Music and even one of her professors from St. Paul’s in Manila attended last night. It was great to hear them play music—piano, flute, violin and their wonderful voices. It’s different when music students and music lovers get together. They played all kinds of music like jazz including operatic voices. It became a great night of fun and great music!

Attending a debut party doesn’t always come my way and it was great to have attended one especially for one of my nieces.

Nope, I don’t have a “love life” problem. My wife and I have a happy marriage for some 35 years now. Despite the ups and downs we go through in life, we are living quite a happy married life. I’m talking about my heart—literally. Yes, I have “a problem of the heart.”

About two weeks ago, I visited my cardiologist and I was advised to take several tests namely: a blood test, an ECG, a 2D Echo and a stress test on a treadmill. I was able to undergo through all those tests—thanks to my health care provider—but after that I was not able to see my doctor back again as I had to fly to Mindanao for a wedding.

Two days ago, I was finally able to see my cardiologist back again and she interpreted what all those test results meant. I couldn’t understand the graphs nor could I understand the handwriting on those papers. Anyway, according to her, under normal conditions, I had normal blood pressure, although my blood test showed my triglycerides are a bit higher than normal. My ECG and 2D Echo results seem to show an acceptable result according to the doctor. But when it came to the tread mill test, it showed that I had a problem. As usual the doctor prescribed some medicines for me to take.

Considering that my dad and my brother had heart problems too—family history—she then advised me to have an angiogram which is according to her needed to find out if there is a narrowing of the arteries and veins and to find out if blood flow is normal or if there is something blocking the normal blood flow. She then told me it might be expensive and the health care provider might not cover it. Whew! Angioplasty is next if the results will show some problems. She explained that angioplasty is the procedure to be done to address the problem.

As it is right now, all I can do is to take care good care of my body in terms of exercise, proper diet, enough rest, avoid getting stressed and avoid doing strenuous activities. In times like these, you come to realize that life will have to end sometime soon and all we can do is to trust the Lord and leave everything into his hands.

In the meantime, for as long as God allows us to live another day, let’s enjoy life and love to the fullest, enjoying every moment, living each day as if it is your last.