Healing Hands

Hands 

Particularly at a time of anxiety waiting for the result of my MRI (normal result, BTW, I was told a couple of days ago), I thought about my Dad whom I fondly remember on this Father's Day.

Sometimes Daddy is the only medicine that works... - Anonymous

I don't remember Mum giving us bubble gum-flavored chewable tablets for colds and fever.

I have a cold. It's snot funny.

She did put Vicks in each nostril and on our back, a washcloth dipped in water on our forehead, and pampered us with a cup of warm arroz caldo and the biggest slice of watermelon for dessert. We were also allowed to read the komiks in bed for as long as we wanted to.

But the best thing she did to soothe our childhood aches and pains? 

She always said, Wait for Dadee. He'd know what to do to make you well again.

We knew that he knew.

As soon as I'd hear him coming in from work, I'd put down my comic book, close my eyes and lay as still as I could. I might even pretend a cough or two.

From the doorway, I could hear Mum giving him a report. I'd open an eye and see him hesitating for only a moment, then giving a slow nod. He would shake his head, then give a slight smile.

Looking me over the steeple of his fingers, he'd ask with the utmost concern in his voice. Sinong may sakit? Who's sick? 

As he sat by my bedside, he'd ask calmly. Dito ba? Is this where the fever is?

As I nodded, he'd cock his head to one side, as if he were making a very important decision about something. Then he'd bend down and gently massage my forehead with both hands. He would start from the center and ease down his hands on the sides and out my temples.

He would repeat the movement, asking each time in a soothing voice if I could feel the fever going down and out of me. I'd nod and he'd repeat the words quietly, Is it going away?

Lifting my face to the ceiling as if it were a sky full of stars, I'd look at him with a broad grin and say, Dadee, it is.

With that answer, he'd look at me, one eyebrow slightly raised. I could see crinkles at the corner of his eyes that let me know that everything would be alright.

Laughing with an easy chuckle, he'd summon me, Go to sleep already. 

There was probably no logic to all this, but did I care?

That night, drops of healing balm touched me. 

I knew it as sure as the sun would rise in the east.

Dadee was the only medicine that worked.

 

A Momentous Christening

From The Archives

I wanted to tickle his feet. 

They were too chubby to fit in shoes, so he went barefoot at his baptism. I remember  laughing so hard when we tried to squeeze his feet into shoes.

Our First Grandson.

Stylish in a blue Hawaiian shirt that matched his Dad's. 

On his baptismal day, I was asked to give the words of blessing. This was what I said.

*************************

THE BESTEST OF ALL BEST

Words of Blessing

Harris United Methodist Church - June 13, 2010

Family milestones have a way of bringing me down on my knees. 

One of them happened on our anniversary last year. We were doing a conference call with Alena, during which she proudly declared, You are going to be grandparents.

Finally - after wanting to be grandparents, burning candles to our Lady of Impossible Conception (and we were not even Catholic)!

The prophet Isaiah's words came to mind. Those who hope on the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles. (Isaiah 40:31).

That was our best anniversary gift ever.

Exciting milestones followed soon after. 

There was the sonogram of a fourth-inch blob resembling a gummi worm that was to be our grandchild. We deemed it The Best Photograph Ever, worthy of publication in the National Geographic.

We knew that the most reliable method to determine the baby's sex was childbirth, but Alena's obstetrician had declared on the baby's 16th week of development that it was to be a boy. That was a milestone.

Thru the ensuing months, the entire family - Vicente and I, and our younger daughter Iris - surrounded the expectant parents and the baby with prayers. We waited upon the Lord in trust, hopeful that this life growing in the womb, from the size of a grape to a giant watermelon, would prosper under God's grace and become strong.

Childbirth is like a vampire - it never strikes before sundown. So it was that labor pains began around midnight on December 7th, when all obstetricians in the state were still in deepest sleep. In TV dramas, childbirth takes about as long as an episode of Gray's Anatomy, but this one took about as long as a public television station's fund-raising marathon.

Then, IT happened. Midday, the very first grandchild in our family was born - the bestest milestone of all.

We all peered in awe at the bundle in Patrick's arms - and saw all of God's grace in one small, pink, crumpled face.

We had prayed for a miracle. Then God sent Reis. Christmas came early.

James 1:17 says: Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of the heavenly lights. Baby Reis was a good, perfect, and our best Christmas gift ever.

Today, we invite you to join us in the mighty chorus of joyful music, leading us sunward, in celebration of yet another milestone - the baby's dedication to become part of the body of believers in Christ.

From the Hughes family calendar, 2011

Our fervent prayer is for this child to be raised up on eagle's wings, secure in the palm of God's hand - that his dreams may take him to the corners of his smiles, to the highest of his hopes, and to the most special places his heart will ever know.

Friends in faith, may I present the parents - our children Alena and Patrick - and our grandson, REIS DENTON HUGHES.

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Always, our prayers and fair hopes for you

 as you grow up,

our dear First Grandson!

This Is Now. Curly-haired First Grandson at 12 years. Today is his first day of Aerospace summer school.

Happy Talk

Hands

There is nothing more beautiful than a vulnerable heart in open hands. -  Amanda Mosher

She had him at Happy talk.

But more than that, her hands. They mesmerize. 

Fans of the 1957 movie musical South Pacific will well remember Bloody Mary's enchanting and innocent Tonkinese daughter Liat. In a memorable scene in the plunge pool below a water's steep fall, she transcends the barriers of language as she mimics with hand gestures the words of her mother's song about having a happy life.

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk,

Talk about things you'd like to do.

Everything starts with a dream.

Lieutelan Cable is gazing at her, his eyes liquid and softened, his face kind.

You gotta have a dream, if you don't have a dream,

How you gonna have a dream come true?

She looks at him with puppy-dog eyes. They play a dance of glances, of secret significant smiles.

Her hands are miracles as she talks about a moon floating in de sky looking like a lily on a lake.

... About a bird learning how to fly

Making all the music he can make.

The way her fingers move feels so natural and right. As if they hold memories of a thousand other lifetimes. 

Her eyes dance with humor, so gold in the sunshine, making him want to touch her. Her hair, her skin. To hold the hand inside him.

I'm spellbound.

Two conspiring lovers, contriving in their mirth.

Vibrant.

Dreamers in an endless universe.

Erupting in some joint  emotion, blinking into the sunlight. A girl saying to de boy: 'You an' me is lucky to be us!'

Behold the hands.

How they promise, supplicate, beckon.

How they can talk happy and have a dream come true.

He's Got The Whole World

Hands 

A reflection on the May 24, 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas that killed nineteen children and two teachers

Besides Jesus Loves Me and Deep and Wide, it was one of the first songs I learned in Sunday School.

He's Got the Whole World.

The first time I heard its title, I remember how my eyes widened, then narrowed, at the thought. Really? God must have pretty large hands. 

As we sang, Deaconess Afrie would instruct us, Make a big circle with both arms, then cup your hands in front of you as though you were holding the world. 

She continued. Now for wind, wave your hands back and forth like they are blowing. For rain, put both hands high in the air and wiggle your fingers as you bring them down to indicate rain.

I was chuckling, How fun! He's got the wind and the rain in his hands and I do, too.

Then more characters came in.  

He's got the gamblin' man in his hands. He's got the lion man in his hands. He's got the crapshoot man in his hands.

This was large, but I was comforted. They were all safe in his hands.

He's got the little bits of baby in his hands.

Aww, even spoiled Youngest Brother?

He's got you and me brother in his hands. He's got you and me sister in his hands.  

It was the kind of thought I replayed in my mind in the weeks that came and filed with hundreds like it, magnifying its significance. I had clung on to its comfort even as I grew up and was raised in church.

Learning stories and parables by heart.

And reciting the story of  Noah and the flood and Jonah and the whale and Jesus feeding the 5,000.

And earning the title of First in Bible drill, someone who knew where to find Malachi. 

But even as I had all the Christian boxes checked off, I came to realize how things and ideas get very small after a while if you stick around long enough.

I miss the days when the whole world could be covered with love by a God who was so big. 

When He's got all of us here in his hands.

When my God was a giant.

 

Joy Comes In The Morning

Spread your wings, let your spirit soar. – Anonymous

This morning, when all else had seemed dismal despite a lovely sunny day, a hummingbird flew into our life. 

Just hovering there.

Staring.

It seemed like its tiny heart was pattering so fast like its wings. I thought, what a thing to have to work that hard every day just to stay alive.

Then it flew closer, attracted to the sparkling red of the feeder.

Finally sipping.

Looking at its vibrant little body with such color and wings that beat faster than thought, I felt as if I could watch the whole of life if I could hold a hummingbird in my hand.

Hummingbird In The Morning. All photos: VEV, Columbus, 2022

A messenger of beauty and wonder.

A reminder for us to taste the sweet nectar of life.

A creature of pure joy.

 

Sampaguita and YIang-Ylang Garland

Flowers of Mum

Some people see sunshine and birds chirping and trees leafing out and think of May.

Some people see tiny green shoots pushing their way through the cold, hard ground and think of May.

Me?

The sign of May I always look for?

Mum's sampaguita and ylang-ylang garland.

Sampaguita, also known as the 'Philippine jasmine,' is often strung with ylang-ylang leaves into a necklace and worn by women.

I remember how Mum would buy a strand from an ambulant vendor in front of the Quiapo church after our Saturday market shopping.

It's usually hung over car rear-view mirrors or altars and religious icons, but since we didn't have any santos, Mum put her garland under her pillow instead.

At night, lying by her before moving to my designated spot on the woven mat, I'd get a whiff of her newly-washed hair smelling of extracted gugo tonic with hints of orange blossom and the wonderful, gentle, and sweet custard-apple and jasmine of the garland. Nestled in my Mum's embrace, I felt how she seemed to have been created to radiate warmth. 

I recall how she would remind me in a whisper, Deaconness Afrie would be picking you up for VBS tomorrow. And murmuring, would say a soft-spoken plea for me to not "accidentally" extend a leg when spoiled Youngest Brother passed by (she knew that I did it on purpose to trip him).

As she spoke, her words echoing in the next few minutes made me feel like everything was happening in slow motion. Looking at her half-closed eyes, I could see a light that often turned inward, as if thoughts were moving across them like passing clouds. Dreamily, she would then gently pull my hair off my face and say, Hala, go to bed already.

Time has slipped by like a leaf dropping from a tree since then, but my memory of Mum and her flowers will always hang like a fragrant necklace of sampaguita and ylang-ylang around the years to come.

Never to be forgotten like the blue florets on my ears.

Everlasting like her straw garland.

A precious gift of waling-waling love.

 

Forget-Me-Not

Flowers of Mum

I recently saw an Etsy-advertised pair of dangling, statement earrings featuring real wild forget-me-not flowers encased in resin.

Clever!

I closed my eyes at the thought and just like that, a sweet and warm memory began to gather in fragments, then came flooding my mind. 

Mum had pots full of forget-me-nots in the front window flower boxes of our house. 

In a country where either the sun shines or it rains, her flowers didn't use words to announce their arrival to the world. They just bloomed. 

Year-round, in fact.

I remember how dainty blue clusters, only about half an inch in diameter with five petals and a yellow center, would fill the entire front of our windowsill. Mum and I often took turns picking off yellowing leaves and spent blooms.

Cut that long stem over there, Chon, she would say. So it will grow fatter and stronger.

Always, she'd pick a couple of tiny clusters, being careful to include the hairy stem they are attached to. She'd then lean forward, part the hair that covered my ears, and carefully tack a cluster on my right pierced lobe, then the left. 

Afterward, she'd dip her glasses slightly, but only slightly, down her nose and study my face. And I'd keep still until she said, her mouth forming a tight grin, Ayan! There you go.

Thoughtfully, I'd locate with my finger where the two dangling forget-me-nots were hanging. I would laugh, ticklish, and stick my nose in the air, hoping to attract a butterfly or two to my ear ornamentation.

Already, I could smell the buds of the star apple tree ripening and tamarind blossoms appearing in their fragrance and loveliness.

And could feel all the amazing that was to come.

(To be continued)