Trixie Cruz: Kids

Those were the days my friend,

We thought they'd never end,

We'd sing and dance, forever and a day

We lived the life we choose,

We'd fight, we'd never lose,

For we were young and sure to have our way...

Those Were the Days

Col. Manuel "Peewee" Cruz,

Philippine Air Force, 1954,

8th Fighter Squadron, Basa Airbase

My father was born on 25 June 1927. He was a teenager when the World War II broke out and he joined the guerilla movement, becoming a member of the Philippine Scouts. Years later, he was made a US citizen for his wartime efforts. He had told me that he was barely sixteen when he joined the guerillas and he did so in retaliation for Japanese atrocities in Bulacan. He was among the other guerillas who ambushed a large contingent of the enemy before taking to the hills.

And here is where I usually stop to think. Papa was 16 and he was fighting for his country at great risk to his life. The heroes of the Philippine Revolution were all young too. Del Pilar was a boy general and martyr at 21, Aguinaldo was President of the Republic at 30, Bonifacio was 29 when he and Ladislao Diwa and Teodoro Plata founded the Katipunan and he was dead at 34.

Trixie Cruz: Rebecca

by Rose Beatrix C. Angeles (Trixie Cruz-Angeles)

INQUIRER.net

Original post on January 28, 2008

Sa aking pagtulog na labis ang himbing

Ang bantay ko'y tala

Ang tanod ko'y bituin

Sa piling ni Nanay

Langit ang buhay

Puso kong may dusa

Sabik sa ugoy ng duyan mo Inay

Sana narito ka Inay

“Sa Ugoy ng Duyan” - Lyrics by Levi Celerio, Music by Lucio San Pedro,

When I was just a little girl

I asked my mother,

What would I be?

“Que Sera, Sera”- Lyrics by Jay Livingston, Music by Ray Evans

Once upon a time a little girl was born with a birth defect so severe, no less than four major operations were necessary for her to have a chance to grow normally. After those four operations, she was to undergo another three, after four years. The birth defect is known as VACTERL association, which is a group of birth defects that appear together in children of diabetic mothers or children born with chromosomal defects. She had the latter.

Trixie Cruz: New Uncertainties

By Rose Beatrix C. Angeles (Trixie Cruz-Angeles)

INQUIRER.net

First Posted January 03, 2008

“Mr. E: There are very few stable futures, boy. The way my father told it to me, the future is a series of infinitely branching possibilities. When we walk it, we walk down the most probable paths, those with the greatest likelihood of occurring. But nothing in the future is definite. Some are periods of great flux — the next hundred years or so are a wash of conflicting events. Others are relatively stable — so that almost any path you walk takes you to the same universe.”

- The Books of Magic By Neil Gaiman

Each New Year, by tradition, is filled with hope. By the grace of God and through the solar calendar, we are given the opportunity to begin anew every twelve months. In the same way that the earth goes through its life cycles of birth, flowering, fertility and death, we are taken along for the ride and are given this small gift of renewal.

True we are not phoenixes. We don’t actually die. But as we are told in Catholic doctrine, we can be born again in spirit. Interestingly, in Babylon, the New Year was celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox , To this day we celebrate it in Christendom as Easter, Pasko ng Bagong Buhay in Filipino, when we celebrate Christ’s conquest of death, and when we ourselves are renewed in spirit.