Living La Vida Simpla
Many people are interested in viewing our Taal lake residence. However, not everybody has the time to come give us a visit. Through the magic of YouTube we can open the house to the whole world:
Tagaytay House Rental Information is here – Ideal for families and tranquil stays.
Speechless and tears in the eyes. Two days after reading Noemi’s Grief Blog I still feel the chills running down my spine. Imagine losing your only son because of a drowing incident. While on vacation you are enjoying the presence of your family members and the next minute your six year old son is found motionless in the pool. As a mother you will endure an indescribable grief. A suffering that lasts not for a year, not for several years but until your last breath. Try to imagine an everlasting personal suffering.
Noemi had already experienced three deaths in her immediate family at the time of her son’s death. Noemi lost her mother while studying in college. Later she lost her brothers Ruben and Oscar. In addition, her father had suffered a series of debilitating strokes which kept him permanently bedridden.
Here we have:
-a mother that has lost the love of her life, her mother and two brothers.
-a father that has lost his wife, two sons and a grandchild.
What can Noemi do? Her father has had more than his share of sad events and now she needs to tell him that his six year old grandson has died…
"Noemi couldn’t bear to tell you the tragic news because you were already so sick. We were afraid you’d join him in death if you‘d ever find out, knowing how you doted on all your grandchildren. We couldn’t risk telling you because we were not ready to see you go yet." – Jose Lardizabal’s Legacy
And so became the death of her son a Loss Never To Tell.
A sad and heartbreaking story but Noemi has used her experience in a positve way. She shares her feelings and experiences with others through her blog, her writings and the Philippine chapter of the Compassionate Friends.
Having experienced the stillbirth of our son Kristian, I can relate to Noemi’s feelings.
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Losing one your siblings creates powerful emotions. It requires enormous amounts of personal strength to put these emotions in the right perspective. The energy required for this process takes a big toll on the human body. As a result of this energy-drain many people feel lost, unhappy and useless. Professional guidance, unconditional love and group support can help you overcome this stage. The solution to personal suffering has been documented:
"When you consider what really makes you unhappy, you find that it's not so much what you have or don't have, it's what you expect to have. To eliminate your suffering, you have to recognize that your expectations do not determine what actually happens. Reality somehow always turns out to be different from what we expect. – Read More
The funny thing is that if you try to directly control your thoughts, you won't succeed – It's one thing to understand that we cause our own suffering and quite another to know what to do about it. That is, you can't just tell yourself to stop expecting something, and you can't just tell yourself to stop worrying..."
If you have suffered a terrible loss do remember that you do not need to walk alone.
Get to know more about Noemi read her interview in the Manila Bulletin
(27 June, 1945 – 22 February, 2007)
It was on my arrival in Dubai that I received the sad news that my friend Jacques was killed in a tragic car accident. Jacques filled his time by running his organic farm and enjoying the good life in the Philippines. Drinking a glass of fine wine while eating a piece of aged cheese, that was one of Jacques favorite activities. But no more. Jacques died on the spot in a deadly car collision near his house in Silang, Cavite. He leaves behind Joy, his partner and JoJo, his son. It’s a great loss but we know Jacques lived his life to the fullest. We send our deepest sympathy to his partner and his son.
“Le talent c’est avoir l’envie de faire quelque chose” – Jacques Brel
Oops I forgot the fourth possibility:
4) The creditlimit was not reset to zero at enddate of the credit card statement
Apparently the creditlimit is only reset 7 days after the ending date of your last statement. In my case the statement covered the period until january 25. Since I thought the monthly limit was already reset I happily started using my credit card again. However, the new transactions were added to the old ones resulting in running in to the credit card limit >> I was at the limit so other transactions were not allowed anymore. I learnt something new again. Everyday I learn something new >> 365 times a year I learn something new >> after ten years I will have learnt 3650 new things – seems impressive to me 
Ok – now that the Blog is up and running I will be using the blog to post some pictures and information about the things I see and do.
Stay tuned…
Getting sleep was the easy part – chosing the place to sleep was a little more difficult. My wife banned me to the driver’s quarters so I spend the night in a small but tranquil room. My wife and me happy – that doesn’t happen very often
Today I will have to call BankCard company. For some reason my Visa credit card stopped working. According to the credit card terminals I have insufficient funds. I have used my credit card several times but nevertheless I should have some remaining balance. I tried to get approval for a 8 euro transaction and even that didn’t work. So there are three possibilities:
1) The system is not working. This has happened before but it has never happened three days in a row.
2) The card has been locked because there appeared to be fraudulent transactions. This has happened before and a simple phonecall should reactivate the card
3) Some smart guy has been using my creditcard to buy himself some goodies. This has also happened before and a simple phonecall should tell me if that is the case.
The funny thing with Bankcard company is that they are this very technologically advanced enterprise, but it’s hard to talk them on a human level:
-I have sent two faxes in the last 48 hours >> no reply yet.
-You can NOT contact them through email, are we the year 2007?
-the Call Center people can not really help you. Call your bank… You still have your card so what’s wrong… Your wife probably used your card… Call us back on another day… Are you sure you didn’t buy something very expensive and you just forgot…
But since they did not reply to my faxes and I really need my creditcard to buy some Skype credit I will have to talk to the Bankcard people.
This is my first post. I took following actions to prepare this blog:
-installed the blog module on my website
-updated the wordpress blogging software to the latest version
-chose and installed a wordpress theme
-enabled the Akismet plugin to keep out comment spammers
Now I’m almost ready to start blogging but first I need to get some sleep. See you soon…