Being Thankful for My Mother

I had not cleaned up the Sent Items folder in my mobile phone for a week or so, which led to it becoming full. Which led to the system automatically deleting the oldest text messages in the folder. Which then made me a tad bit upset.

Not because I am unnaturally attached to my sent messages per se, but because those deleted items held a deeper meaning for me: they were messages I had sent to relatives the day we last had our mother here with us. Those messages somehow gave me a continued connection, albeit a tenuous one, to the events of that day, the 18th of May 2010.

From the time when I let my aunt know that our mother, her sister, had just about stopped responding, or appeared to stop responding, to words and sounds and touch... to the time when her breathing changed patterns... to when her blood pressure fell to 90/60 but the nurses could not get a pulse reading... to when we were asked by the doctor if we wanted extraordinary measures... to the time when we prayed the rosary by her bedside and she peacefully left this world right around the end of our prayers.

These are all still so clear in my mind.

Some might think that it's unhealthy for me to cling to memories of that day, or that those text messages were just ephemeral symbols. Maybe so, but they represented something that I can never have again, not in this lifetime. They were my connection to that last day when I still had a mother, here, on earth, living.

I'm feeling nostalgic and sad and regretful all at once. I keep thinking that I should have moved those messages into a separate personal folder in my phone. But that's all water under the bridge now.

Whether I have those messages in my phone or not, the memories will always remain. And I believe that Mama would not have wanted me, or my sister, or our father, to feel sad whenever memories of her come to mind.

I am thankful that we had her as a mother; with all her quirks and sometimes-overprotective manner, I appreciated her all the more when I became a wife and a mother myself. I realized it was not as simple and easy a task as I had imagined it to be.

I am thankful that she got to know her two granddaughters, even though the toddler was still so young when our mother passed on.

I am thankful that we were given the gift of time to spend with her in her last months, in her last days, in her last moments.

I am thankful that she passed on in a state of grace.

I can't help missing her still.

Kindle or Nook?

Kindle or Nook?

Ah, a very serious question for me indeed. One that has consumed the better part of my Internet surfing hours this weekend.

Bookworm, bibliophile, bookaholic. Yep, that's me. I had seen a Kindle in the past, and read about the Nook as well, but I always maintained that it would be next-to-impossible to replace the feel of an actual book in one's hands, its solid weight comfortingly real. E-books held their own attraction, but nothing could pull me away from the good old-fashioned book.

Then I started to pore over the specs of these e-readers. I was hooked, the quasi-techie that I am. Each has its own pluses and minuses: Amazon's Kindle has its much-vaunted Pearl E-ink technology, with a display very closely approximating the printed page, and this goes very easy on the eyes, literally. Reviews state that downloading books is a cinch, even in the Philippines, there is free 3G access, and that battery life lasts for 3-4 weeks. Of course, all of these are over and above the fact that the Kindle is Amazon's #1 bestseller at the moment, with the most number of 5-star reviews. As it aims to replicate the physical-book reading experience, the display comes only in black (and shades of gray) and white. There is no expandable memory, although 4 GB is certainly nothing to sneer at.

The Nook Color is a beauty, no question about that. With full-color display and an expandable memory (up to 32 GB), this would've been a hands-down choice for me. These features come at a slight premium over the Kindle's price though. The big downside for Barnes & Noble's product though is that B&N do not ship internationally to the Philippines, and that downloading Nook-Books requires a credit card with a US address, something that I definitely do not have. I'm still trolling the Web for work-arounds.

And so I sat browsing the Amazon and B&N catalogs for the e-readers, covers, and available books.

Ah, my self-imposed snobbery on e-readers appears to be crumbling now.

This is a Good Evening

We just had a lovely meal of beef burgers (made by my sister and brother-in-law) -- the homemade kind, mind you, complete with do-it-yourself trimmings: mayo, mustard, catsup, sweet onions, lettuce, tomatoes, grated queso de bola. Lip-smacking indeed! The hamburger buns that were supposed to go with our dinner suddenly sprouted molds though -- before the expiry date! Arrgh! No matter, there was trusty white bread anyway. Yummy!

The kids are happily splashing away in the tub for their bathtime, playing with some toys and sloshing water at each other.

Hubby and I managed to get home quite early, with some time to rest and read and do whatever tickles our fancy.

This is life. Thanks be to God.