A Perfect Christmas

This Christmas, far from over, was lovely. We went to mass on Christmas Eve, here in New Bedford. Then we stayed up waiting for midnight, a custom from my part of the family and opened presents. My heart was completely content because all our children were home. It is the best feeling in the world. [...]

Read Full Post »

Ghosts of Christmas Past – a ramble of memory

I could have grown up into a depressed cynic, who lost the happiness lotto because of life experience and baggage. But, deep down in me always lived the soul of a happy child and an almost boring stability. I was not particularly brave or articulate as a child, but a child nonetheless, like all [...]

Read Full Post »

Thanks-filled

Speechless and humbled and filled with joy, I am. Stumbling upon this on this great and bountiful holiday, time stopped.
Thanks-filled
by my daughter, Ana-Maria
I.
I am thankful for this sturdy table,
worked by hand, and cloaked in handworked linen
to mask the stains and gouges left
by the feasts and frolics of many generations.
Lost legacies, stowed away in cupboards,
in [...]

Read Full Post »

The Best Christmas

It’s been a beautiful sequence of days. On Facebook , via text messages, phone calls, and via email, reunions of dear, dear people from long ago and far away.
Some of us live on the other side of the world. Yet old Baguio, like Carlos Bulosan’s America, is a place that lives in the heart.
It’s still [...]

Read Full Post »

My daughter Mercy Bell’s Christmas Song

Singing Merry Christmas and Joy to the World!

Read Full Post »