Memory Lane Archives » Touched by An Angel

14Feb 2023

Always Valentine’s Day , says my ex-boyfriend

Two Valentine’s Day from the two most important guys in my life (next to my dad) strike me as the most memorable. The first one is my first Valentine’s day with Butch, my ex-boyfriend. The second is the last Valentine’s Day Card that my son lovingly crafted for me.

Leafing through the yellowed pages of my diary, I found a journal entry written on February 14, 1979. The wonderful thing about keeping a journal is one is able to relive those youthful years and feel giddy all over again. Oh my, were we that cheesy!? Looking back that day, I wrote I saw him through the window carrying a single red rose and a gift. Clutching the red rose, Butch chuckled at the scene unfolding before him. Just like the movies, he muttered. Three pages of sweet nothings where my sappy ex-boyfriend declared his undying love and our dreams in my paper journal. In the last part of my journal entry, he had whispered “Let’s make Valentine’s day the whole year through”. kilig. Today is our 43th Valentine’s Day celebration.

Though our love endured, it was not all roses and sweet nothings.

The childlike scribble of the I love you that my son wrote in his handmade Valentine’s day card never fails to bring tears. Tears of joy, of course. Reading through the same journal entry of February 14, 1979, Butch and I wove dreams of our first-born son who we called Jose Luis back then. (Jose, because both our fathers are Jose’s and Luis for Butch’s actual name.) Many years later, the dream of our Jose Luis materialized, whom we nicknamed Luijoe, for short. The reality lasted for six glorious years. I caress the crayon drawn heart in this card to remind myself that death may have taken our son away but his love and memories remain alive and pure in our hearts.

Listen to my podcast of this post

As with the past 44 Valentine’s Day , we celebrate it at home with my husband. Since we could not spend Christmas Day together in 2020 except via Zoom so today, we wore our ugly Christmas shirt. Never too late to celebrate love and life.

Let’s remember what love truly is…

Love is patient. Love is kind. Love isn’t jealous. It doesn’t sing its own praises. It isn’t arrogant. It isn’t rude. It doesn’t think about itself. It isn’t irritable. It doesn’t keep track of wrongs. It isn’t happy when injustice is done, but it is happy with the truth. Love never stops being patient, never stops believing, never stops hoping, never gives up.

Love never comes to an end

<< 1 Corinthians 13 >>

02Apr 2021

How my son reminded me about the comfort of St. John the Beloved

by webs ⋅ 1 Comment

When a child dies, it’s not the natural order of things. For many years, I struggled to find the meaning of my son’s death. Five years and a lot of pain later, I finally found the answers. It all started with an email to Cathy after I invited her to join as co-founder for the Compassionate Friends Philippines.I have to mention that this support group is not around anymore, but I continue to offer comfort in my aboutmyrecovery.com blog.

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She replied and readily agreed to join. What struck me was her statement:

I now know that we are called to serve in different ways because we have different missions. Setting up Compassionate Friends in the Philippines is clearly yours as Migi’s Corner and Grief counselling and death education are mine.

How could that be? If I wanted a mission, a foundation seems a more noble idea. “The Compassionate Friends” is not an original idea. So there I was thinking, Alma, Cathy and Pia initiated foundations all in the memory of their children. I don’t have any memorial or foundation in Luijoe’s name. I felt a bit sad, but Cathy’s words stuck in my mind for many days until I remembered a conversation with my son during Holy Week.

The actual picture that Luijoe pointed out in his prayerbook

This is what I wrote in Luijoe’s memorial site almost 21 years ago:

Then one night while we had our usual prayers before bedtime, he pointed to the picture of St. John the Apostle which was found in his Rosary Prayer book. I explained that Jesus told John to take care and comfort his mother when he dies. Luijoe seemed to be touched by St. John and the following nights, he kept repeating the same question and this time he was asking how John was related to Mother Mary. I found that to be a very deep question, and I just said he was one of Jesus’ apostle.

Now I realized the meaning. It was like Luijoe was making sure I would remember John. I did remember our conversation during the wake .It touched my heart that my son was worried about my grief.

I realized Luijoe wanted me to carry on the comfort to others. The St. John symbolizes compassion. By working with The Compassionate Friends, I would act like a “St. John” to other bereaved parents. This memory brought tears of joy and nostalgia. Even if I am no longer around in this mortal world, this grief support group will still continue on. Truly, God works in mysterious ways and He uses our children to help us find and shape our ministries. It is our children who remind us of the bigger work that God has set out for us in this world.

I wrote this post a long time ago when I was still active with “The Compassionate Friends”. But I continue to talk to parents who have lost a child through my blog and sharing this podcast. My son never let me forget that there are many “St. Johns” in my life. Today, Good Friday reminds me Luijoe is never entirely gone

Luijoe is never entirely gone.

Luijoe’s favorite prayer book

28Mar 2021

Being a 70s child & why today’s youth never had it so good

by Noemi Lardizabal-Dado ⋅ 4 Comments

“Being an 80s child & why today’s youth never had it so good” brings back sweet memories of my youth. Hence, I’ve come up with my own version of the 70’s child. (yes I am that old. High School in 1970 and college in 1974).

We didn’t have Oculus Virtual Reality headsets, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, X boxes, video games, cable TV with over 100 channels, VCR’s, surround sound, cellular phones, computers, online chatrooms.

Instead we had…

1. Dance parties that started at 4:00 PM because martial law imposed a curfew at 12:00 midnight. A permit was required whenever there were more than 5 guests.

Listen to the podcast version:

2. Portable typewriter instead of a laptop. When you made a typing error, you had to use a correction fluid . No delete buttons. And you had to have your content ready before typing.

3. Four TV channels: Channel 3, Channel 7 and Channel 9 and Channel 13.

4. No call waiting. No direct dialing. One time, I had the shock of my life when an operator rudely interrupted a telephone conversation with my suitor because of an incoming long distance call.

5. No Automated Teller machines. Since I resided at a dormitory in the UP campus, my allowance was sent through telegraphic transfer. Queuing at PNB for 30 minutes or so was not fun at all.

6. PONG . If you don’t know what PONG is it is a rudimentary side-view tennis game, the ball bounces off a long horizontal line at the bottom of the oscilloscope, and there is a small vertical line in the centre to represent the net.

7. No email. I wrote letters to my siblings with a pen, of course, and rode a jeepney to drop my letter at the post office. Often it takes a week for our letter to arrive. If we wanted instant messaging, we had to use the telegram such as RCPI.

8. No World Wide Web. Research had to be done in the library. And nope, there were no search engines. One needed to be proficient in the Dewey Decimal Classification System and use the card catalog to get the right book.

9. No bottled water. I drank water from the faucet or from a hose in the backyard.

10. No portable music player. No Napster. No. torrents. No MP3 ‘s. No IPod. No Spotify, Apple Music. No podcasts. Vinyl records and cassette tapes were so cool. I brought my friends over to the house to groove with the music and dance along with the music- 12 steps (not the 12-step program, duh), LA walk, the Swing.

11. No tablets or iPads. No macbooks . No IBM. No Microsoft. We had a TRS 80. And the RAM was either 4 or 16 kilobytes of RAM . Whaa?

12. No USB flash drives. No CD’s or floppy disk either. Instead, we used cassette tapes to store computer data. If the tape got torn, you splice it.

13. No computer schools. I did my own self-study on BASIC programming .

14. Groovy . Not astig.

(I will add more when I remember something. )

To the children of this decade: I hope you take advantage of the new technologies to enhance your God-given talents. You never had it so good.

Photo via pxleyes.com

07Mar 2021

Our Love Story: 43 years with my college sweetheart

by Noemi Lardizabal-Dado ⋅ 107 Comments

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I wrote this 13 years ago, but I thought I’d update it again because today is our couple anniversary. I like to look back at the good old days and dream about the future together. Here is our story:

I gaze at my two lovely daughters and smile. I realize they are much older than us.. when we, their parents, were just college sweethearts. My two daughters wailed and wondered when they will meet The One. Will they be as blessed as their parents who found their true love from each other? I have no ready answers. Love just happens when you least expect it. Who would have thought Butch and I would end up together for better and for worse? He became my boyfriend for the most shallow reasons, which was “I wanted a cute boyfriend”

Butch and I met through my college roommate at the University of the Philippines Shopping Center ‘ restaurant. It was not love at first sight for me. I think Butch was stricken by Cupid’s arrow that fateful night. To my great annoyance, he kept staring at me “You have beautiful eyes” all night long. He never let go of me since then. Though Butch was utterly charming and really cute, I wasn’t interested. First, he looked really wild as in “jeprox” (the slang word for punk during those days). Second, “mestizos” are not my type. Third, he was two years younger than me. I knew he was 18 years old, yet he lied that he was 20 years old.

He was very persistent. Riding on his yellow motorcycle, he’d zoom past the dorm as if “by accident” and pretend to be surprised to see me. I liked the attention but felt he was too dangerous. But see, Butch had a way with words (think “bolero”) which would make any girl giggle. Fear engulfed me when I began to fall in love with him. His wild and dangerous looks were just too tempting. What was it with “bad boy image” that attracted me to him? For years, I poured over my books just to get excellent grades, but for what? College is supposed to be fun. I wanted to have fun. My motto that semester: be adventurous and grab a cute boyfriend. After all, graduation loomed the following semester. I decided I wanted to have a boyfriend. Not just any boyfriend. He had to be a cute.

My greatest fear though was he’d seduce me. Butch looked really reckless and seductive. Heck. I threw caution to the wind and “went along with him” the night he announced to the world that I was his girlfriend.

I thought, “I am his girlfriend? How did that happen?”

Whispering sweet nothings to my ear, “I will marry you one day. I will be a lawyer. You just see.”

I was laughing inside and mused I would never marry this guy. He’s a bum. I won’t have a future with him. He is my boyfriend because I just want to have fun. I hate my boring student life.

True enough, the following month, I found out he didn’t meet the university requirements of passing 21 units, 60% passing of all subjects and to have a passing grade in at least 4 units. He scored a grand slam. The verdict was expulsion from the state university. I knew there was hope, so I dragged him to the college secretary for a reconsideration.

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“No, I don’t have hope. I will move to San Beda then take up Law after college” he moaned.

“You are going to graduate AB Political Science from UP and proceed to the College of Law”, I convinced him to appeal.

Thanks to Dean Martin Gregorio, Butch was granted a reconsideration. Since we became steadies, he passed all his subjects and eventually studied Law.

Despite Butch wild streak, he never took advantage of me. Haha. I should give him credit for being a gentleman in that aspect. In fact, we enjoyed a clean and responsible relationship. Friends doubted that we practiced abstinence. True, Butch would suddenly wrap me in his arms and plant a kiss on my lips right in front of my horrified friends, but that was it. We were a romantic couple for 7 years. Locking our hands together, we sat by the sunken garden and watched the sunset as we wove dreams of being together forever and having babies one day. Amidst the Beegees “How Deep is Your Love”, time stood still for love struck us. Well, mostly his dreams. I wasn’t too sure if he would be a suitable husband.

Two years later…

Holding pizza and a dozen red roses , Butch took me by surprise as he knelt down and proposed marriage. How roooomaaaantic, I gushed .

My brain woke me up from fantasy land.

I said “God, No. You’re only 20. You don’t have a job. You haven’t graduated from college”

We married 7 years after we first met in college.

Our love story is quite long , romantic and crazy so I am not boring you to tears . But see, our love spans 42 years. We have two anniversary dates: March 7 when we first became college sweethearts and May 5 for our wedding day. And of course, celebrating the day we met on January 26, 1978. That sums up 38 years together as a couple who are still so madly in love with each other. You know it is true love when you have gone through the worse moments in marriage and yet managed to survive and make the love even stronger than it ever was.

It wasn’t all roses, sweet nothings, and icing on a cake type of relationship.

We nearly separated 16. years ago. Grief had overtaken us so much. Our marriage suffered during the first few years after my son died. My husband and I had different ways of coping with our grief. He wanted to talk about Luijoe’s death. I preferred to keep quiet and be by myself. This created a distance between us. Sometime in 2005, I packed my bags and muttered goodbye to a tearful Butch. I couldn’t stand him anymore. I wanted a new life without him. I made sure the girls were settled in their dormitories for me to make this great escape.

Alas, God destined me to stick it out with Butch.

$fracture$ As I moved in to my new pad, I lost my footing on the steps and fell to the ground. Were those firecrackers I heard? Oh dear, that awful popping sound came from my ankles. Holding on to the lifeless ankle, my ex-landlord helped me into a cab and brought myself to Medical City emergency room. Fuelled with pride, I refused to contact Butch but asked L to bring me clothes for my confinement. I suffered a fracture which required insertion of metal rods onto my right tibia and ankle bone. Butch got hold of my accident and drove to Medical City. He insisted on taking care of me.

I had no choice but to live with him and work things out. Truly God works in mysterious ways. It was as if God said, ” you can’t run away from your marriage. Try to fix it”. Eventually, with the help of a caring grief counsellor, we sorted out our problems and renewed our commitment to work on our marriage. The secret in the renewal of our marriage was reliving that first time we fell madly in love with each other.

For the next 6 months, I was confined to the wheelchair or crutches . Sounds like those cheesy Filipino scenes in a movie, huh?

Our love is best seen as devotion and action, not just an emotion. Our love during those college sweethearts ‘ days were based on shallow emotions towards each other. Today, our devotion to each other has truly led us to true love.

Yes, young love is possible, dear girls. Our love will always be a work in progress till death do us part

Often when the revival of Beegees “How Deep is Your love” plays in the airwaves, the meaning of the lyrics rings true then and now:

Chorus:
How deep is your love
I really need to learn
cause were living in a world of fools
Breaking us down
When they all should let us be
We belong to you and me

I believe in you
You know the door to my very soul
You’re the light in my deepest darkest hour
You’re my saviour when I fall
And you may not think
I care for you
When you know down inside
That I really do

Epilogue- March 7, 2021

I took this picture on December 30, 2020 when my husband arrived home from a two-week hospitalization due to an asymptomatic case of Covid-19. This illness is so unpredictable that I thought the worst. Would he die? Would we both die? I don’t know how I survived those two weeks. Fortunately, my household staff and I tested negative for the coronavirus. But I prayed so hard that we survive this because we have so much to live for. Our coffee project is just starting. We still have to a meaningful life ahead of us. Despite all the hardships in our marriage, I would rather face them than live without the love of my life. Treasure each day with your loved ones. Celebrate life.

March 7, 1978

7 Years Later

2006

2008

25th anniversary shoot at the UP Campus, March 2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

December 30, 2020 – The day my husband went home from the hospital where he was confined for two weeks because of asymptomatic covid-19

04Feb 2021

Cute things kids say

by Noemi Lardizabal-Dado ⋅ 9 Comments

I am such a sucker for keeping a memory box of my children’s art work , writings, anecdotes or their milestones since they were toddlers. I bought a treasure box for each of my children to hold all of these memories. One of my favorites are the childhood anecdotes that I kept in my memory journal. Children say the cutest things ever. I love reading some of these anecdotes, just to smile and remember the good old days. They speak the most innocent and precious words that either warm our hearts or make us laugh with delight and simply saying ““awww…”

I’m sure you have your own collection of cute kid’s talk. Now to spare my adult children from being teased, I will not mention names . Let me refer to them as my Young man, Cute kid and Adorable kid.

3-year-old cute kid
One time, while watching TV , commercial breaks filled the TV screen. For instance Tide Bar is compared to Brand X, and the same goes for shampoos . Cute kid kept bugging me Mom, buy that every time a commercial came out. I explained to her that commercials intend to persuade us to buy their products . They also claim it is superior when in fact it’s not . Cute kid mused and thought for a moment on my meek explanations.

Then her eyes brightened I have an idea. Let’s buy BRAND X instead.

4-year-old adorable kid

Miriam College Pre-school is known for its environmental consciousness. They are taught early on the segregation of biodegradable and non-biodegradable garbage. One afternoon, adorable kid played with her ball along the streets but the ball rolled to the drainage eventually gone forever. Noting her distraught face, I promised that I’d buy her another ball.

Her worried look touched me.

Mom, garbage that clogs the drainage can cause floods

I comforted her ““it’s okay, it’s just one ball. One ball won’t flood Manila.”

The following week, my girl played with the new ball I promised to buy her. Unfortunately, the ball rolled again to the drainage. She cried her heart out. I was wondering why she was inconsolable.

I hugged her ““It’s okay. I can buy another ball”

With tears pouring down her cheeks, ““Mom , two balls already fell to the drainage”. I continued to hug her ““That’s okay . It was an accident”.

Then she covered her face ““You don’t understand , mom. Manila will now get flooded because of me”

““Awww, no dear…” as I hugged her.

6-year-old Young Man

My family and I went up to the mountains for a vacation on my husband’s side. My son urged everyone to gather around the bonfire so we could talk. Sweet, I thought. As we huddled around the fire, he declared “let’s talk about love”.

““Aww…”

3-year-old Cute kid

In the late 80’s women bangs are often puffed up with hair spray or fizz.
Cute kid watched me intently as I combed my bangs and finally setting it in place with a hair spray.
She looked triumphant with her impish grin.
That does it mom! No more cockroaches

Don’t you just love the funny things our children can come up with sometimes? Care to share them here?

19Dec 2020

Kasadya Ning Takna-a: Classic Filipino Christmas Carol

by Noemi Lardizabal-Dado ⋅ 12 Comments

Update: Last February , 2018 the City of Cebu honored the composer, Vicente Rubi for his Contribution to Music. Ludivina Rubi Najarro, his lone surviving child received the award.

Tita Luding Rubi Pleños with Ka Bino Guerrero

Kasadya Ning Takna-a (“How Joyful Is This Season”) is a classic Christmas Carol and my favorite Filipino Christmas Carol. I still remember the lyrics by heart because I used to sing this upbeat Christmas song as a little girl while caroling with my friends in Cebu.

Listen to Kasadya ni Takna-a on Spotify.

Preface:

Kasadya ning taknaa
Dapit sa kahimayaan
Mao’y atong makita
Ang panagway’ng masanglagon
Bulahan ug bulahan
Ang tagbalay nga giawitan
Awit nga halangdonon ug sa tanang Pasko
Magmalipayon!

Chorus:
Repeat Preface
Bag-ong tuig
Bag-ong kinabuhi
Duyogan ‘ta sa atong gebati
Atong awiton aron sa kalipay
kita makaangkon!

Chorus
Preface
Awit nga halangdonon ug sa tanang Pasko magmalipayon

I am sure the song is more familiar to you if sang as Ang Pasko ay Sumapit, a popular Filipino Christmas Carol and the Tagalog adaptation of the 1933 Cebuano carol. Ang Pasko ay Sumapit first hit the airwaves when I was a teenager but I was horrified to hear my favorite carol sang in a different accent and beat. It’s not the same., I cried inside. I don’t hear the rondalla introduction of the song. It sounds horrible. I thought. The heavy (maragsa) accent that added vigor and festiveness was just not there in the Tagalog version. I’m sure if you heard the Tagalog version, you would appreciate Ang Pasko ay Sumapit but I first heard it sung in Visayan!

Listen to this:

For me, Ang Pasko ay Sumapit is NOTHING compared to the joyfulness of the carol if sang in Visayan. The closest Tagalog version that follows true to the original version is the one sang by the Mabuhay Singers. Even the meaning of the lyrics are different.

But what makes the song even pathetic is the composer was paid a measly price for the Tagalog version. Here is the story of the Cebuano composer, Vicente Rubi.

A gentle Cebuano composer Vicente Rubi jotted down the notes of this daygon (carol) for a Christmas festival that year. Mariano Vestil, another Cebuano, wrote the lyrics. Forgotten Today, carolers in Cebu still sing the lilting beat and lyrics that the now-barely-remembered Rubi and Vestil blended 70 years ago. Bulahan ang tagbalay nga giawitan (“Blessed the homes that carolers sing to”). ….”It’s the supremest of ironies in a country that boasts of the longest celebration of Christmas,” Jullie Yap Daza wrote in the Times Journal in 1978. “But not a trace of effort has been made to attribute the beloved carol Ang Pasko Ay Sumapit to its author, Vicente D. Rubi.” By then, Rubi was an old impoverished widower, confined in a Cebu hospital. His carol had been hijacked by a recording company for 150 pesos.

Cebuanos recall the frail old man would shuffle to teach carolers, at his gate, how to sing his carol right. “Nong Inting” died in 1980, denied “what is due him in royalties,” now Manila Standard editor Yap-Daza wrote. This is raw exploitation. Today’s jargon calls that “Intellectual Property Rights” theft.

I heard Kasadya Ning Takna-a sang a few years ago and nearly choked in tears at the thought of Vicente Rubi never being paid royalties by that greedy recording company. Whenever I listen to Ang Pasko ay Sumapit, not only do I feel strange hearing it sung in a different tone but I feel history should give more credit to Vicente Rubi.

Bagong tuig, bagong kinabuhi, the Cebuano original, and its Tagalog adaptation, proclaim. It echoes the Advent cry of Isaiah: “Break the fetters of injustice … and break every yoke/ Then, will your light break forth as the morning.”

Where is the justice due Vicente Rubi?

Though more than 70 years have lapsed and royalties are way past the 50 year mark, I will honor Vicente Rubi in this blog for all the world to know him as the composer of Ang Pasko ay Sumapit, the Tagalog version of Kasadya Ning Takna-a.

One day, I hope a music producer will come out with the Kasadya Ning Takna-a , the original daygon version. Hopefully, this forgotten Cebuano Carol will once again claim its rightful place in Philippine music.

How joyful is this season if we remember Vicente Rubi.

What is your favorite Christmas song?

21Sep 2020

A Teen During the Martial Law Era

by Noemi Lardizabal-Dado ⋅ 13 Comments

48 years ago, I was in high school but I was already aware that the dictator Marcos tried to muzzle the press.

I was 15 years old when Proclamation 1081 was declared by then President Ferdinand Marcos. My folks seemed overjoyed with the news. The administration did a great job brainwashing the old folks that the country was in turmoil and thus, Martial Law needed to be declared. I didn’t know it then, of course. I felt disappointment wash over me when I was told that my essay on “Freedom of Speech” would not be published in my High School Magazine. It was supposed to be my first publication. Even if I wrote another piece, all sorts of magazines were banned.

I felt a bit alarmed that any house could be raided for “subversive materials”. Any reading material might be “subversive” in the eyes of the military. Dad was wise. He started buying books and magazines that were pro-Marcos. But all of these inconveniences were insignificant to me.

As a teen, the first thing that came to my mind was “Now what can me and my friends do for fun?” This was what faced us:

1. Curfew of twelve midnight was imposed.
2. Any group of 5 people or more needed a permit at the Camp Lapu-lapu.

How can we ever party now? During those days, mixed parties, watching movies, hanging out in our homes was our idea of fun. No shopping malls then to frolick except for the neighborhood grocery store. Of course there was the beach but that is mostly for family events.

My fears didn’t last long. My classmates and I learned to adapt to this new situation.

How did we do it?

1. The class president or the secretary procured the necessary party permit from the Camp.
2. Parties started at exactly 7:00 PM.
3. Dancing commenced soon after.
4. At 11:30 PM, we leave the party just so we can beat the curfew.

Then we became more innovative. Wessie Quisumbing, whose family owned Norkis Trading had a basement in their office which could be pitch dark if the curtains were drawn. Betcha by Golly Wow we shrieked at Wessie’s offer. That prompted our parties to start at 4:00 PM and we grooved the night away to the 70’s disco-soul music of The Intruders, Three Degrees, Gloria Gaynor, The Trammps or Barry White. “Theme from ‘Shaft'” by Isaac Hayes with its high-hat disco stomp beat was a favorite for years. As long as we were being watchful of the curfew and got our party permit , Martial Law was no killjoy

If there was one valuable lesson that Martial Law taught me as a teen-ager, it was the ability to make productive use of our time, to be organized and being punctual. Time and party planning was of the essence. My friends and I had to maximize our precious time in order to enjoy the limited party hours.

We learned to tame the time monster. You might be surprised at how much you can get done. The real reward for us was that we were less stressed and more happy even under adverse situations.

Family Photo taken on October 1972

23May 2019

How to Smile (for photos)

by Noemi Lardizabal-Dado ⋅ 26 Comments

Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. ~Mother Teresa

With the advent of selfies, looking good in the pic matters or else, why take selfies at all?

A few years ago, my friends lamented , “Why do you manage to look so nice in all the photos? ” We were making goofy faces with the photo booth in Dine’s macbook and all of us were having a ball experimenting with our smiles. I glanced at the photo and caught my usual upper smile, my mouth slightly open with the upper teeth seen. I tell them “the secret is because I practiced the art of smiling since my teen years.” Let me tell you why.

As the daughter of a very fair skinned mom, my cruel uncles ( the brothers of my mom) often teased I was “negra”. I was made to believe that being “negra” is ugly. What has color got to do with beauty anyway? I grew up believing I was ugly which in effect made me shy and feeling well “ugly”. I don’t know why my mother never stopped my uncles from calling me such horrible names. Then I became a teenager. I was fixing the bed of my mom and caught a reflection of myself in the mirror. I tossed my long glossy straight hair and then stared at my face . I smiled at my reflection and liked what I saw . I said to myself “You’re not ugly after all.” Maybe I was just being narcissistic after seeing myself with a smile instead of a scowl but from that day on, I smiled at my reflection whenever I passed by the mirror.

It helped that I got the smiling genes of my jolly father.

My sisters also got the smiling genes.

(Taken 2010.)

But despite perfecting the art of smiling, there was a time I couldn’t smile. Look at my no-glow smile photo below. Sure, my lips curve back and my mouth opens to expose the upper teeth but my eyes are lifeless. This was during the darkest moments of my grief journey and the time I suffered from borderline obesity.

See, there’s more to smiling than just moving the lips.

How does one develop a genuine, infectious smile?

It starts inside of you. If you are happy, it radiates and shows in the twinkle of your eyes.

1. Believe that you are beautiful inside and out. Your smile is bound to look better if you feel good about yourself!

2. Look in the mirror and start practicing until it becomes a natural reaction.

- You have no need for the “The Beauty Smile Trainer” a mouthpiece designed specifically to make your smile wider and more amicable than the one you already have.
- Every mouth is shaped differently and there types of smiles which work only for you. Check the 5 types of smiles which suit you.

Determine your best smile.

3. Smile with your eyes. When we think of smiling, we think of the mouth, but the eyes may actually be more essential to a warm, genuine smile. Once your eyes are smiling, they tend to pull your whole face (including your mouth) into a natural, beautiful smile. Here is a tip on how to smile with the eyes

Smiling with your eyes is difficult to describe–in general your cheekbones lift slightly and your eyebrows dip a little–but when you see it, you know it: it’s that look of your eyes “lighting up” or “twinkling.” To get a feel for how to make your eyes smile, get in front of a mirror and practice smiling, but concentrate only on your eyes. You may find it helpful to cover the lower part of your face with a piece of paper. Play around with it a bit, and you’ll find that you can make your mouth smile when your eyes aren’t smiling, and you can also smile only with your eyes. When your eyes do smile, remember how it feels, which muscles are working and how. With practice, you’ll be able to smile with your eyes at will.

4. Take practice shots from your digital camera. Raise your chin slightly if your photos tend to show your flabby chin. Knowing your best angle also helps.

5. Just have fun. Be in a happy state of mind and the smile will show.

The smiles show in my family.

How do you smile? Do you have other tips that developed your winning smile?

11Jul 2018

Always Young and Wild (Not)

by Noemi Lardizabal-Dado ⋅ 13 Comments

If there is anything my daughters (especially my eldest girl) cannot imagine is a young and wild me. True, I was once young (still young), a 105 pound slim and anti-social girl who’d rather pour over her school text books than gallivant around with her roommates or officemates. I never considered myself “wild” , not wild enough to party out during weekends. Not wild enough to bend a few rules here and there.

I am the sister who admonished her siblings NOT to stay out late. The only time I ever went home late was at 2:00 AM only because my ex-boyfriend drove me all the way from Quezon City to Las Piñas. To think that I was then 24 years old, living independently since college graduation and I had the freedom to go out anywhere I wished.

I was like the manang.

I am the sister who shook her head and berated her sisters whenever I see them scurrying off like rats over to the door as soon as my dad fell asleep. If only he knew.

I am the sister who got appalled whenever her other sisters climbed over the gates of our house after curfew hours. Of course, I never tattle-taled on them.

The two “wildest” things I ever did in my life was smoking (yes, bad!) and oogling at cute guys while abroad during a conference I attended with my sister Lorna and dad. The year was in 1984, a year before I got married. Butch told me that I should take this vacation because once we got married, he is not sure if he can bring me around the world. (He still hasn’t.)

I thought that it is my last time to “appreciate” the cute guys (I still do!) without the guilt so why not? My sister, the sociable one always broke the ice when we met these cute guys. I can’t remember if I flirted or not. Maybe not because one time, a British guy stalked me as I loitered around the trade hall. Of course I snubbed the creep because girls don’t like to be stalked no matter how cute they are. The temerity of this guy! He had the gall to say that I was racist, just because of his color. Oh wow. I could have slapped him right there and then.

My ex-boyfriend must have been attracted to my boring personality because one day he suddenly blurted in that sexy voice, You are like a rock to me. I must have also been attracted to his wild, reckless and unconventional ways too. We easily complemented each other. Sometimes, I see a little of myself in my second daughter (she’s more sociable than I was at her age) and my husband in Lauren though I know they are their own unique persons.

Do I regret not being a bit more wild?

Yes and no. No, because my personality is probably like that and Yes because I should have been more easygoing. I’ve evolved to a more laid-back person in the past years. Though I might have aged and grown bigger the past 29 years since those photos were taken, I still feel young and in every essence, happy. Age is not a factor to be considered “wild” and carefree.

I have never been happier in my life. I don’t pine for the good old days of my un-reckless lost youth. When I look back at my life , I don’t think in terms of my losses. I think of all the experience gained. And I look forward with enthusiasm about experiences that have yet to be enjoyed with my husband, my daughters, my blogger friends, the citizen advocates of Blog Watch and my wonderful, loving siblings.

It’s one reason I want to venture into new activities or cultivate new friendships. There is always something fun to do.

To be young and wild is all about attitude.

27Jan 2018

Getting out of my comfort zone

by Noemi Lardizabal-Dado ⋅ Leave a Comment

“We are so accustomed to the comforts of “I cannot”, “I do not want to” and “it is too difficult” that we forget to realize when we stop doing things for ourselves and expect others to dance around us, we are not achieving greatness. We have made ourselves weak.” Pandora Poikilos, Excuse Me, My Brains Have Stepped Out

When I think of challenges and opportunities, I take a trip down memory lane to that time when I was a young girl trying to establish a career.

I could have stuck with my Food Technologist position because it is my bacherlor’s degree. At twenty one years old, I was a Production and Quality Control Supervisor for a candy manufacturer, which you know today as MENTOS. I found myself struggling with Tagalog and finally learning how to speak it ( though broken) in order to communicate with the workers. The daily sampling of all the sweet and chewy goodies and meeting production schedules felt like clockwork. Doing the same thing, day in and day out, in my white lab gown was not challenging enough. BORING! I felt my mind needed to learn something new which I can apply to my job. I wanted to do something different from Food Technology.

A Masters degree in Business Administration was the in-thing among my peers. Will a Food Technologist make it? Though I had a few units in Business and Accounting, I felt it was not enough. “Think out of the box” was what I needed to come up with the more “creative” solutions for case studies. Armed with new skills and knowledge, I was ready for a different career path.

In 1981, I shifted careers. I was drawn to developmental work . Working as a researcher/consultant for UP Institute for Small Scale Industries (UP ISSI) and Small Enterprise Research Development Foundation (SERDEF) was a dream job because I can use my knowledge to help the country’s economy. During those days, I only had pencil and yellow pad to write my research and a typist for drafts and the final copy. I literally cut my draft and pasted onto a new sheet of paper during revisions.

One project that made me cry was this World Bank grant on a “Study on possible widening of the scope of Planter’s Bank Financing Activities for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises” in 1984. The WB was not happy with the study of the former Project Manager and I was tasked to revise it.

Yes, I knew how to research but I had zero knowledge about financial institutions. I called up my father who is a financial expert in Cebu and ranted that I had no idea what I was supposed to write. Just like any helpful father, he gave me articles or clippings about financial institutions. Daddy was my “internet” or source of information outside the library. Pouring over volumes of secondary data and analyzing the primary data, I finished the report. I re-wrote everything . With computers and the ease of printing these days, I cannot imagine how I came out with this study that consisted of so many pages.

Looking at my life 33 years ago reminds me that even at my golden age, I can move on to a new chapter. I kept this study as a trophy for myself, that I must always challenge myself. The only way to create change is by leaving your comfort zone. The only way for me to change my life and to change them for good is to relocate my comfort zone.

You can do it too. How?

You can change your life with repeated, specific action — the trick is actually going through with it all. Change your habits and sooner than you think you’ll find yourself within a new comfort zone — a comfort zone so far from your original comfort zone that you may have trouble understanding how it is that you were able to accomplish so much. And then you will have nothing but you and your inner drill sergeant to thank. Each of us has the power to change our lives. Most of us, however, rather remain comfortable.

I would have never attained a fraction of my potential if I stuck it out being safe and comfortable. As I embark on a new chapter of my life as a “Content Strategist” , I tell myself “you can make it happen.”

What have you done to go out of your comfort zone?

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Category Archives: Memory Lane