Wacky Anniversay Gifts

This is my very first attempt at blogging and while tinkering with my dashboard, realized TODAY is my wedding anniversary with Ompong - it would have been our 18th year!

God is awesome! He had and has always been my faithful comforter and the fullness of my joy. He is always at the right timing -- allowing circumstances to work together for the good of those who love Him, whom He called according to His purpose. I am privileged to be gifted with widowhood so I can comfort those who are going through the same journey.

Ompong and I celebrated our ten years together with special dates and gifts. The first year of course was the most romantic and extravagant. I received a very expensive gift - a diamond studded ring! It was actually a post engagement gift because I never had an engagement ring.

The succeeding years got more interesting:

• 2nd - 1993 - We ate at Binondo Chinatown for my favorite authentic chinese food - at T.Pinpin (pronounced as Te-pin-pin)
  
  
• 3rd - 1994 - I was 8 months pregnant with my second baby, we went to a girlie bar (my friend said Ompong must have paid corkage so I would be allowed entry to the bar)
  
  
• 4th - 1995 - We went to Villa Escudero - we ran....and ran....shhh...secret!
  
  
• 5th - 1996 -Allowed me (so long as he went along) to go on a two-hour hiking in the hills of Majayjay, Laguna. When we went to the stream, I slipped face down on a big boulder and I heard him say "Naku! Honey ko!" he was so worried that I got hurt. How sweet...
  
  
• 6th - 1997 - He gave me a guitar, because he wanted me to go back to my passion since childhood. Ompong and I used to play the guitar together, up until my old guitar was broken by my kid.
  
  
• 7th - 1998 - We attended the CCF couple's retreat and my husband committed our family to serve the Lord Jesus Christ
  
  
• 8th - 1999 - Finally, he decided to move out of my in-laws' house (where we stayed since we got married) and we started amortizing for a beautiful home in a quaint place somewhere in the suburbs, the one that I really loved
  
  
• 9th - 2000 - Ompong never ran out of antics, he gifted me with "buntot ng butiki (lizard's tail)! Did you know that the lizard's tail moves even if it's not connected to the body?! Eeeeyeeew! I was (and still am) afraid of "butiki"! He had fun running after me around the house...after that he gave me a bouquet of spring flowers - my favorite
  
  
• 10th - 2001 - Every Friday since 1998, we dated and ate out in authentic restaurants. He decided to give me asian cuisine recipe books so we could learn start cooking our own dish while bonding during weekends...and so he started to cook for me he-he, I don't cook!
  

Our adventure was disrupted by a Laoag International Airlines flight 585 plane crash on an eventful morning of November 11, 2002. He would have brought me and my kids to Cebu to celebrate our eleventh anniversary.

December 21st had never been the same since then. I've allowed myself to get drowned with the Christmas rush, parties, shopping, workplace and children's concerns -- because I couldn't and wouldn't allow my emotions be buried with Ompong.

Today, after seven years, God allowed Ompong to smile at me, gifting me with this blogpost.

Happy Anniversary Ompong!

You are with Christ, Christ is in Me, therefore we are still together...I hope you can gift me with a new partner :) Joke lang!

Missing Ompong

This year marks my husband's seventh year of passing on to be with our Creator, leaving me three lovable and God-fearing children.

For the past years, I have struggled with giving him up and accepting a "single' status. I have always felt married to him. In fact I still carry his last name: Angeles.

He has always been alive in my dreams; we talked and goofed around, doing the same fun things when he was alive...but my dream suddenly crumbles when my mind knocks me off with reality. There was a time that I hugged his part of the bed only to realize it was empty.

In times when I fixed our files, I'd say, "Ah, I will ask Ompong where he filed this document..." because he was the organized one and I was the spontaneous.

During a full moon where we used to go out of our room's view deck, I miss holding his hand, wrapped up in his arms while looking at the big, round, shining moon. I miss telling him that his bald head looked like the moon! And he'd just kissed me "shhh...you are my star". Actually my little girl was his star, daddy's little girl. My eldest son was our family's "Sun" shine, and my youngest jolly son, as our "Rainbow" -- and me? I am Mother Earth -- where everyone of them revolves around -- as my husband quipped.