I cry for Maw and others whose own relatives (by blood and by marriage) have decided to turn away from unity. The Almighty(s) are not sleeping. This is true for I am saddened to witness once again how self serving people are towards those innocent folks, who expect nothing in return except kindness and compassion with unconditional love.
Around 11:30AM, Maw has received a phone call from a niece-in-law, ‘Zenith Sie-Ella’. ‘Zenith’ has called to inform us that they are leaving for the Philippines. Maw said very little and spoke the following: ‘Did you leave a message? Thank you very much but I’d rather send my packages by mail. I am cooking. Bon Voyage.’ And Maw hung up the phone.
This last minute phone call is another technique employed by relatives to avoid coming over to our home. The point is that people like ‘Zenith’ use excuses, such as being too busy due to driving her kids to school, too tired due to working overtime as a medical technician at Stanford University and too forgetful to remember calling us (her own relatives) at anytime by leaving at least a message on our answering machine.
Since Paw and Maw are both retired and stay home most of the time, they return the phone calls whenever there is a message to be answered properly. Noone should be too busy, too tired or too forgetful in their younger ages to remember older folks who would like to be remembered once in awhile.
Our understanding was that ‘Zenith’ has ‘promised’ that there would be space in one of her two per person allowable ‘balik-bayan’ (literally, send-town folks) boxes. Her plan was to bring her four children over to visit us sometime last week. But they neither had the courtesy to call to confirm nor show up at all. Amazingly, she did have free one box available for her friends instead of us.
By not having at least some ‘pasa-loo-bong’ (which mean souvenirs to bring home to the Philippines), this makes ‘Zenith’ look bad towards our poor relatives (who may expect something from us). Tonight, Maw will call long distance to inform her relative to not go looking for anything from the liar when she and her family arrive with the boxes meant for the relatives of ‘Zenith’ only.
Uncle ‘Forlorn’ and his wife ‘Hell-Lie’, bless their souls, are correct about how bad their daughter-in-law has behaved towards them. One time, ‘Zenith’, had instructed her own kids to not answer the door after her mother-in-law ‘Hell-Lie’ walked more than thirty minutes from her home to the place of ‘Zenith’. This is no surprise because Maw has now realized how the old folks must have felt.
The other incident was the request by ‘Zenith’ for Maw to buy a box of corned beef to take to her mother around Christmas time last year. ‘Zenith’ never showed up with the kids either. I recalled looking around for decent Christmas cards to hold their cash money as gifts. We will now discard those gift items and send the money meant for the kids to those poorer relatives instead.
I believe that broad has a bad attitude towards poor folks. Her family owns some sort of lumber business for the small town in Philippines and probably has played the part by acting snotty to her sponsors living in America. When older folks observe anything amiss with their in-laws, there is always some truth that does not always become apparent until later in life.
What will happen to her and people like her is bad karma. The effects, for example, will have already shown itself via the fact that the oldest daughter, ‘Crys-Nutball’, hears voices since childhood. This medical condition is inherited from the family side of ‘Zenith’; not mine. The downfall may escalate to other unforeseen circumstances that will have to be left in the hands of ‘providence’.
The lessons learned from these sorts of people are that unity is false and being together does not always mean love. There are groups who are capable of understanding the willingness by anyone caring enough by action alone. Under these circumstances, I’m afraid that words do not substantiate well enough for us to believe by faith alone up to this point.
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