In between...

In between this posting and the April post:

--I celebrated my birthday
--we celebrated Samuel's Dedication
--Samuel turned four months
--My parents returned to the Philippines

Having my parents here was such a treasure. It was as if time stood still and I was back home again.

There are dreams that seem so real, you think you can just reach out and touch them...you want to keep on dreaming forever because that's happiness right there in that dreaming...

I have those dreams. I dream I am sitting down with my dear ones, I dream of dinners filled with chatter and laughter, I dream the bright sunlight, and the light radiating from faces so dear as we sit and talk and talk and laugh and remember all the good old days.

I think I just have to reach out a hand to touch the hand of the one next to me, and I wake up in the darkness of a Dutch dawn...and realize I'm not home but here, and while I am happy here, there is a part of me that thinks I'm dreaming this and if I just close my eyes tight enough, I'll open them and find myself waking up to the sunlight streaming in through the pale pink curtains of the room I shared with my sister...

But there's no going back, and I have to say how I would not exchange the reality of these:

--Joel Jan
--Samuel
--Jan
--family and friends I've found in this cold "kikker" land

But still, I miss...and we all miss:

--chess games with Lolo
--Lola singing to Sam
--Lola playing the piano
--football with Lolo
--stories exchanged during extended meals
--together time in the evening
--and all that...all the things that made us live inside the dream for the space of almost four months

We all live towards that moment of the next meeting...