|
907cee8
|
When you start to say to yourself, just one look back, just one glance, the danger will have begun for you.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
4b5823c
|
These women were like her sisters. Even if she wanted desperately to be free of them. Sometimes the strongest prisons were the ones created by the people you loved the most.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
564a2a7
|
Two people can be in the same room and still be gone.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
af1869f
|
My heart aches for my people. I don't understand why God gives more power to some and less to others.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
2b70dc4
|
Your sight will be lost. It is not too late. You are humble still, pure. Let go of this fascination with earthly riches. You have so much more than they.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
611b18c
|
I know one thing. If you let your personal hate interfere, you will bury your cause." We"
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
692d6bd
|
I am frightened, yet I cannot help my mouth from saying these things. It has always been this way with me. My thinking and my mouth have been the matter of many arguments with my mother. He
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
8d4bde1
|
It must be all or nothing. We cannot approach the situation halfway." After"
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
c7627c1
|
Those things belong to the darkness. We must rely on God. We must ask Him to make us strong, unafraid. To give us the strength to band together, to defeat these devils." She makes the sign of the cross. "God will guide us through this."
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
202d673
|
there will come a day when this war shall end and we will have the sunlight on our faces again.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
695925b
|
Even a mama dog will protect her young to the death. What more of a mother?
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
29f9787
|
They want to break the only thing we have left, our spirits. I will not let them. No matter what they do to me.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
78d5d58
|
Do not hold this pain of what has happened to you close to your heart, Isabelle. You must let it go. No matter matter how painful. It will ruin you. If you keep silent, if you swallow it, it will eat you liked cancer.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
0737309
|
She wants to study medicine, good for her. But why cause so much trouble for herself, trying to be a doctor? Be a nurse instead. This is more acceptable. For a woman to become a doctor is like climbing a ladder full of people on top, fighting to kick you back down. If she becomes a teacher, or even a nun, the door is open, wide open. They will take her with big arms and happy faces." Mama shakes her head."
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
294fb67
|
Isabelle has hungry eyes. She is never happy with her situation. I tell her, 'Think about others worse off than you. At least you have a family, at least there is a roof over your head.' And do you know what she said to me? 'Why should I be content with what I have? What is wrong with reaching higher, wanting more?' " "Ah, but that is the way of the young nowadays."
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
598692d
|
Think about others worse off than you. At least you have a family, at least there is a roof over your head.' And do you know what she said to me? 'Why should I be content with what I have? What is wrong with reaching higher,
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
cbb3435
|
Her father spoils her with ideas. He encourages her to climb high, reach for the heavens. But who is there to catch her when she falls? Me. Who has to explain to her that not as many doors are open as she would like to think? Me. So what do I get in repayment? I am the bad person. The one standing in her way. Have you ever seen a daughter who hated her mother so,
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
eae920a
|
These things occur between mothers and daughters. Their relationships are more fragile than fathers and sons.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
d42c7e6
|
Mama does not like to make too many waves in the ocean. She told us it is important to be good to one another, especially now. She said the time has come when we must each lean on the other, so it is important to have patience.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
0533734
|
What did you think? That we were going to a tea party? These men are trained to live through days in the jungle without food, without hope. They fight for a better Philippinas than the one we have at this moment. We've been reduced to animals, and so we act as such. Do you have a better answer on how to win this war?
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
bb08013
|
Overhead, the Amerikano planes buzz by, great birds swooping down with a vengeance. But who is winning? I cannot imagine the Amerikanos will win. How can they? They have lost once before, and how will they resupply themselves when their country is so far away? The Japanese need only jump north and they will be home. How I wish they would both go home.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
def081b
|
I prayed in my heart for a real father, since the one I had been given was a failure to me. That was my deepest wish, and my deepest sorrow.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
bbdf109
|
I look him straight in the eyes. I know I should not do this, but it has always been this way with me. Once I feel fear, I can stand it for only so long before I become angry.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
f3d243f
|
I have been her greatest foe, and she my biggest protector. Her heart is so pure, like a child's. She gives without thinking. She longs to have beautiful things, I see it in her eyes, but she always thinks of us first.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
6a2d0d1
|
In church, does it ever seem to you a kind of game? Hypocritical. Be humble, they say, yet people come in their best clothes. Give penance, yet as they close their eyes and kneel, they compare who is better dressed, the beauty of someone else's wife, the sway of her hips, they think of anything but prayers.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
e33ed8a
|
I must wait, bide my time. There will be an opportunity. I need only keep my eyes open. Back
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
94fca62
|
Do not hold this pain of what has happened to you close to your heart, Isabelle. You must let it go. No matter how painful. It will ruin you. If you keep silent, if you swallow it, it will eat you like a cancer." I"
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
6f18408
|
I tell you now, better to spit it all out, cry a hundred days over this matter, an entire year, than ruin your life over it. You must acknowledge it now, so that it has no power over you. I do not assume to know what you are going through, but I do know something about hate.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
32be485
|
Do not hold on to the bitterness, Isabelle, it will eat at your body like worms, and you will ruin your future because of it. I was not always this unhappy. I know what people call me behind my back,
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
c607b60
|
I thought to myself how lucky, how lucky that I jumped at my only chance when I could. Sure, I did not love him, but I was loved. I had everything Corazon had wanted. I had beaten her at every round, yet I felt nothing but a devastating emptiness inside. Y
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
441944c
|
I had many dreams, too. But I became bitter, and by the time I realized it, I had almost wished my whole life away.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
d25d476
|
I am not afraid of ghosts. My mother said they can't hurt you. Only the living can.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
f642fbe
|
you should rejoice in what you do have.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
a3732f3
|
We must rely on God. We must ask Him to make us strong, unafraid. To give us the strength to band together, to defeat these devils." She makes the sign of the cross. "God will guide us through this."
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
73075fa
|
I had decided the best way to breach our distance was to forget the past and start new.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
d84cbd7
|
That evening when my destiny changed is a tattoo needled into my soul. I shall never forget it.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
569049f
|
Tears must not fall on dead. Otherwise spirit not able to rest. Janna will be bound to earth by tears, and spirit will return again and again to owner of tears, until matter is resolved.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
d81aec3
|
I do not care. My baby, my baby, oh, Janna. Ako na lang sana." People gasped at her last words and made the sign of the cross. It was very bad luck, what she said, to wish that it had been she who had died instead."
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
e5c4a9d
|
My aunts did not share in the housework, but they contributed greatly to all of the village gossip. They had fake faces, showing Mama kindness and calling her ate, "big sister," but once they were alone, I heard the snide remarks they shot like an arrow in her direction. They had no shame. On that day of our deepest sorrow, the two of them snorted, elbowing each other while Mama writhed in agony on the floor,"
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
0984a29
|
Yesterday you spoke of power as if it were a good thing. You said you wished we had some kind of magic that could rid us of the Japanese soldiers. I have never seen it used for good. Think of the Japanese soldiers with all their power. It has eroded their hearts and their souls.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
990b992
|
we must be thankful that we are all together. And we must believe that there is a reason we are still alive,
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
38e5f65
|
Family is important above all else.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
5f93190
|
When there is no family, what else is there to fight for? I was blinded with obsession, for something that could never fill me. I lost everything that mattered.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |
|
4eed3ed
|
They were hollow words. I think God heard this and knew. Promises should be sacred; I think I cursed myself by making one I did not intend to keep.
|
|
|
Tess Uriza Holthe |