Melankoliko Dialogo

With my father in the hospital for more than 3 days now, the doctor has advised us that his pneumonia seems to become worst from day 1. I’m not sure how this goes, but I don’t like the idea of staying in the hospital for so long.

To be honest, it is my first time to take care for my father. For the last 26 years of my life, it has always been the other way around. I fed him, I did the sponge bath for him and was awake almost the entire night for his request to drink water, urinate and among other things. It felt fulfilling yet awkward for the first time.

How do we really react when everything seems to be uncertain?

We’re praying that this is nothing serious and I hope you include us in your prayers. Thank You.

My father was rushed to the hospital yesterday due to pneumonia. It got complicated because he didn’t rest, took his medications and worked from Sunday to Wednesday when he was supposed to rest and recuperate.

My papa, who is afraid of needles doesn’t also want to stay in the hospital. He was forced to be admitted because of the complications of what he was feeling. He couldn’t even stand straight or walk for 5 minutes without stopping and breathe in.

I was kind of worried because he was complaining about not being able to breathe well, his back was in pain and when the doctor tried to press his upper torso, it was painful which was the same symptoms as my grandfather before prior to the findings of lung cancer. Whew, good thing it was pneumonia.

But come to think of it, my papa was working everyday and he was also on a  drinking spree (plus smoking) afterwards. We’ve been telling him to stop but he doesn’t want to. It’s wired into him since his youthful age and I guess it’s hard for him to stop or stop abruptly.

For those who are reading this blog, please pray for my father. Let’s pray that out of this situation he will come to know the healing power of God, the grace and love that comes from our Father in Heaven and REPENT!

Thank you everyone for reading!

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

The Author of Ecclesiastes (King Solomon) was definitely correct when he mentioned doing so many things yet it becomes a meaningless effort by the end of the day (or at one’s life). And as much as I want to be secretive about this, I often experience feeling “meaningless” most of the time.

There can be a lot of reasons why we feel that way. It can be with stress due to work, a family problem or even a health problem. Nevertheless, we need to be reminded that God has given us one life to live and it should be spent wisely and meaningfully from day one to eternity.

I remember my boss’ advice in one learning session wherein he told us the importance of defining what’s important and urgent and identify things that are not important or urgent and make use of our time wisely. For us christians, we call this discernment.

This will not only lessen the time we consume over unnecessary tasks, it can also help be organized with our time and work.  It can also give us ample time to enjoy, have fun and get revitalized since life is not always about work and careers after all.

God has given us opportunities to enjoy work and provide for our family but He also gave us opportunities in life for leisure as well. The same author gave us a solid advice on how we can go about this -

“So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun…” – Ecclesiastes 8:15

Let us then be reminded to not just stay focused with work but take time to enjoy and be with friends and family. Work will always be there but our missed opportunity to spend quality time with our close friends and family can never be retrieved or paid by the things we achieve at work.

Our world can be so hectic that we often neglect the importance of sitting still or have fun. It is always important to make time to relax and forget about our work and family problems and focus on the happy side of life. If we spend time off from work, we get refreshed, refocused and revitalized to do more and be more for the challenges we face daily.

My friends and I usually talk about what will happen when we have gray hairs and sit by and talk about some stuff. We often enjoy sharing our stories about sitting at the side of the beach, discussing about the good old days and our experiences.

We often laugh about the idea of our grandchildren bringing us to our favorite spot and spend quality time with one another after years of work, family life and among other things. There came a point wherein all of us shared one thing that we want to do and leave as a legacy. Although not all of us have the same desires, we dreamed of sitting down one day when we are old and with gray hair and tell our younger generation about life experiences and give sound advice to their own dilemmas as well.

I’m excited when that time comes, it is an opportunity to share, reflect and agree to King Solomon’s wisdom on life, aging and fullness.