I can’t remember exactly which summer it was, ’59 or ’60, but the rest is crystal clear. I learned a most valuable worldly lesson that day. It was an education and a humiliation. A lesson in respect and that old adage: never judge a book by its cover.

It is often said that in the repressed and carefree 1950s that kids didn’t know about sex. That’s not exactly true. We didn’t know what lovemaking was or how a baby was born, but we certainly had a primitive knowledge of sex appeal.

Little girls knew they liked boys who were “cute,” and try as we may to think of girls as “icky,” we boys knew we wanted to be near the pretty ones.

If a girl was pretty and also able to run and catch and kick like a boy too, then she was even more desirable to be around.

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It would be a fun night. I was excited because I hadn’t seen my good friend Chris in a year. My flight was long, I was entertained by a 14 year old during my whole flight, and he wouldn’t shut up…basketball this…. playstation that…. I JUST WANTED TO LAND @ THE AIRPORT!!
Actually what I really wanted was to see Chris, although he was my good friend, I secretly had a crush on him…(I THINK HE KNEW IT)

The moment finally came when my plane landed…. I seen Chris awaiting me in the distance… oh what a good time I’d have in Atlanta. The big night was near. We were considered VIP at the club that we were going too, so I was very exicted. I wore my best BurBerry tan shorts and a cute top to match. 3 inch heels…. I was confident. Everything was going swell. I’d met a lot of interesting people, had one too many drinks,and I was feeling just fine. I sat @ the bar with a few friends and Chris and I felt something warm coming down my leg, and I thought nothing of it at first… maybe a little alcohol spilled… I proceeded to have a good time and drink with my buddies, and admiring Chris at the same time. I stood up to go dance and when I looked down my leg… THERE WAS BLOODDDD dripping. OMG!!!

I didn’t know what to do! I was covered in it from front to back… (what a place to start your period) The club was filled and I didn’t know what I was going to do, or how I’d make it to the car let along to the bath room! okay, here I am standing, my whole body looking like a bloody crime scene. Would I make it to the door without anyone seeing…. It was impossible. I glanced over at Chis, and I wanted to “DIE”… I had no other choice, I had to tell him. Chris lifted me off my 2 ft, covered me with the shirt he’d taken off of his back, and walked me out of the club as if I’d had a little too much to drink when in actually, I was covered with blood…. This was humiliating. Ladies I know you feel my pain. I just thought I’d share one the most horrible experiences of my life… the best is yet to come..(lol)

Lisa

I inhaled the salty air of the ocean, a feeling of tranquility passing over me as I watched the red ball of flame set beneath the horizon. This was Ha Long Bay, the place of my conception. My family was vacationing in this fishing village for two weeks. People lived on floating houses, their simple lives sustained by fishing. I felt like I had never left, because the emerald waters seemed so familiar. I was not aware of a pair of brown eyes watching me from afar.

I was just about to stick my toes into the water when a boy’s voice called out to me, “Well, don’t just stand there. Try out the water!”

I turned, startled. It was a boy no older than eighteen years old. He wore a huge grin on his face underneath a mop of thick black hair. His eyes seemed to twinkle in the setting sun.

“I was about to,” I mumbled with a scowl. I snuck glances back, waiting for him to leave. He kept motioning me toward the water.

“You need to stop watching me!” I yelled at him. Suddenly, he ran laughing at me and before I knew it I was pushed backwards into the water. I screamed.

“I CAN’T SWIM! HELP! HELP!” It turns out I was just flailing like an idiot for five minutes in water that wasn’t even 2 feet deep. He couldn’t stop laughing as he pulled me out of the water. “My name is Loc, by the way,” he said.

My face was bright red the rest of the day.

Loc and I spent the next two weeks glued to each other’s sides. He was the son of one of the fishermen in the village. He taught me how to fish, how to swim, how to blow bubbles, and most importantly, he taught me how freeing love was. He gave me my first kiss in the rain.

After our parents were asleep on my last night, I met up with Loc at the secret hut we’d built. He presented me with a beautiful jade necklace. “I want you to always remember me. I’ve never loved a girl like I love you,” he said.

I hugged him tightly, not wanting to let go. I felt a warm liquid on my fingers. His back was bleeding. “What happened?” I asked in shock.

“My father beat me. I took some of our fishing money to buy you this necklace.”

I wanted to cry. I got a washcloth and cleaned the wounds. He caught my hand as I was getting up to leave.

“Ngoc, stay with me tonight… I don’t want to think about tomorrow.”

I lay down next to him on the blanketed floor. I rested my head on his chest; it felt so nice and comforting, breathing in his scent and listening to his heartbeat. “Loc,” I whispered, “I’m always here if you need me.” Somehow, it seemed so right, with the two of us lying beneath the stars and the moon and not a care in the world. I forgot that I was leaving the next morning, and that I would probably never see Loc again.

I lay there, listening to his rhythms breathing, feeling the touch of his fingers on my ribs, his salty scent drifting through my senses. I trailed my finger along the contours of his face, tracing every line, engraving it into my heart. I’d never felt this way before, like I belonged somewhere, right in the arms of this strange boy, who’d burst through my life like a giant tidal wave. Why couldn’t time have stopped? I was thinking what a magical night it was, and I thought I could even hear the stars howling above.

It was magical indeed. It was love beneath the howling stars.

The next morning I left Vietnam on a plane. I saw Loc again. It’s been five years, yet I can still smell the fish from his hands and feel his arms around me. Sometimes when the ocean wind blows by, I hear his words, “Anh yeu em,” (I love you), in my ears. And I clutch the necklace I still wear close to my heart.

Ngoc H. Le

I wonder if my kids understand the importance of cultivating, nurturing and maintaining healthy loving relationships. Do they understand that you can have a garage full of nice cars, big houses, fancy vacations, designer clothes but still be one of the loneliest, most unhappy people in the world. Think about it, if you knew your kids were going to be financially sound and have nice houses and cars but hadn’t talked to their sister or brother in a year OR worse yet even you, would it break your heart? We take for granted the closeness and tight bonds we have with them while they are young. We have control of this right now, but when they are grown whatever relationships we want to have with them might solely depend on them and what values we have imparted. And furthermore, what they have watched us do!

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This is the eighth month after the death of my mother-in-law.

She was a health freak and never used to eat out. I lived with her for seventeen years and never saw her missing her daily exercise routine. She was a role model for many people in the hospital where she was working as a matron. It was in 2006 that she started complaining for stomachache. I was upset with her bad health. She was diagnosed with the second degree cirrhosis of her liver. Poor lady! My husband and I took her to the best doctors in the town and started her on medication. Unfortunately, she did not respond to any of the medications as it was too late to get the damage repaired at that stage.

During this course, she became very hostile with us. She was irritated to the extent that she started calling me names. She was amused in bad mouthing me to every individual who used to come to see her. The doctor, however, explained it in another way. He was of the opinion that she is terminally ill and scared of death. Since her liver was damaged, she had all possible deficiencies in her body because of which she was not able to eat anything more than a couple of spoonful of soup and half a glass of juice for the whole day.

We were finding it difficult to adjust between our work and home life. It was very difficult for me to tolerate her bad words. In spite of supporting my husband in that critical time period, I used to criticize his mother’s behavior. He tried to make me understand several times, but my brain had a block set up there and was not ready to listen to him. This continued for all those months while her health was deteriorating. It was in the month of October that she breathed her last and finally the horrified episode of my life came to an end.

As a matter of fact, I should have had peace after this, but I am sad to loose her this way. Every now and then, I feel the loss which her death has created in my life. I go out for work and my children are alone at home. She used to be there with them when she was alive. I never realized it when she was alive. She used to take care of several things at home and I never knew many of them until the whole responsibility came on my shoulders. I regret my behavior with her. I could not understand the pain she was going through.

We tried all alternative medicines available but what can substitute love and care!
My only motive here to share my experience is that the parents can not be replaced once lost. There is no way that we can get them back. My mother used to say that parents can raise ten children but they together also can not look after their parents.

The Nature would never change its course for anyone, but we can change our nature to incorporate an element of love and care in our hearts to be given away

I think it was one of the most awkward moments of my life. He called, asked if we could hang out tonight, and i agreed, thinking it was going to be another nonchalant evening with one of my good friends. I was completely oblivious to his true plans until the moment his mom dropped us off alone at Applebee’s, and then she winked at you, and told us to “have fun.”

It was a complete set-up.

i have to admit my initial reaction was, ” Ohhhh No! ” Curse myself for not having common sense! I was on a date. Rummaging through my mind in panic, I was trying to think of every possible way i could have mislead him to believe i had any special feelings for him, or did something towards him inadvertently turning him on, or maybe I’d had misunderstood his intentions of the night in the first place.

So he got us a table and i could tell through his blundering ways of speaking he was nervous about the entire ordeal. To make matters worse, he made me guess who he liked, and he described every aspect of me down to the minute fact of how I laugh and then either clap my hands or smack something, making it easily distinguishable whom he were talking about.

Already i began foraging though my mind frantically searching for possible excuses that he might redeem satisfactory to my polite decline. I remember how in middle school, i prayed so forcefully for these “asking out” occasions to arise. Funny how one boy can screw that up for the rest of them. And then you dropped the bomb on me like you thought I had no idea and that excitement and jubilance would swell up from my soul. It didn’t quite work out like that, but I’m still in utter disbelief you would think i’d like you as more than friends. I told how i was sorry about the instant ‘No’ response. But geeze, it is not the way to a girl’s heart to manipulate her on a date!

I hope the night for him wasn’t a total calamity. Despite all that awkward moments, i did fancy hanging out with him, as friends.

Its hard dating and finding someone you can trust and I know 1st hand about trust. It was 2005, October was the month. I had invited a male friend over to my place, some one I had known for a few months. It was shortly after 8pm. He had been hanging out with his boys and I had planned the day before to hang out with him for a while, boy did I make the biggest mistake of my life.

I get a knock at the door it was him, staggering in, could barely walk . Telling me he had had a few drinks with his friends at the bar. I then asked him if he would be okay and come sit down. We talked a little bit not alot, because he was in no shape to say much. I was a little afraid because he just wasn’t himself or what I knew him to be. I wanted him to leave but I was to afraid to ask him to go home. He laid down on my bed and I told him, I really did not know him to well, but he could lay there until he got it together and could drive home. I then sat beside him on the bed.

He pretended to drift off to sleep. I then laid there as well. His hands started touching me in places he had no business I then asked him to stop, and he ranted and raved in a loud pitch voice. I then told him if he could not keep his hands off me he would need to leave, need less to say he was still acting wild and rubbing me in places I was very uncomfortable. I fought for hours to get him to stop touching me. I wanting him to leave so bad but was afraid to say it.. I prayed that the night would pass fast so that the next day would come where he would be sober enough to leave. I slept that night with one eye open. Scared to sleep, scared to say anything more to him, because he was getting very angry by the minute. My heart raced and my nerves were shaky. I feel like maybe I should have never invited him over. He had been drinking before he came over. And could not seem to control his hands.The night passed and the morning came can you believe he did not remember what he had done. I could have been raped that night too scared to tell him to leave.

This night was like a night mare.

CHARONDA

It was in 1996 when I first experienced the excruciating pain. I was almot 5 months pregnant to my third baby (the second was a miscarriage). I was brought to the hospital, ultra sound performed, but they found nothing, they said, and maybe it was just some gas pain because I just ate 4 eggs (balot, Philippine delicacy from duck eggs). The pain subsided anyway and we teased that each egg was worth P200 when it was really P3. The price hike was due to the hospital bill our pockets were damaged with.

A month later I was back to the hospital with an even more painful stomach. It was soooo painful. I was throwing up my bile, green and bitter. I had another ultra sound. That time they saw 2 ovarian cycsts at my left. The doctor said it is possible that it can get smaller and that she can remove it at the time I deliver my baby. At times, others experienced having the cyst come out with the delivery. We were ready to check out.

While waiting for the last visit of the doctor in preparation for checking out, I had a more painful stomach. The interval between pains were getting short too…it was like I was in labor, getting ready to deliver…but I was just 5 1/2 months pregnant. The pain was soooooo terrible. more than the labor pain. The doctor said my baby was distressed.

I had to be operated on. We have been briefed. We have to choose. My life or the baby’s. Of course my life was the choice. We were ready. We have put everything in God’s will. There was nothing we can do.

I was given a general anesthesia. I still can imagine the prick of the needle at my back. Little by little I got sleepy and numb. Before I lost consciousness I even said a little prayer, “God bless you…” referring to the works of the doctor’s hands.

When I woke up I was in my room. I was greeted by my husband but said I still should not talk and that I have to rest. With weak body and arms, I felt my stomach and asked him, how’s the baby? He said, “it’s there.” That was the sweetest words I’ve heard that day. Tears welled my eyes as I mentally prayed for thanks.

Hours later when the doctor made her rounds and I was awake, she explained what happened. What they thought as 2 cysts was actually 1 big lump that twisted, which later ruptured. That night I was like in labor pains was the time the cyst ruptured. (While I was on the table and got all the cyst parts, it filled the small kidney basin which she brought out to show my husband.) She said, my case was rare. For most cases, the mother and baby died, or the baby died and mother survived. In my case, they were able to set aside the uterus with the fetus inside, remove the left ovary and the rest of the ruptured cyst, put back the ovary in place and stiched me back up. What’s more miraculous was, the ruptured cyst remained in one place when it could have scattered and poisoned my body. Since it stayed in one place, she was able to get everything out.

In February 18, 1997 I had a NORMAL delivery to a baby girl. Her name is Myrrh Raquel. We call her Raqy (rocky), a survivor, God’s reminder that miracles do happen. She had several major miracles in her life, all having something to do with her health but she always survived.

Lesson? Always trust God. Anything can happen but with Him, there’s always a chance that miracles can happen than without Him.

Cecile Cinco

It was a time when I questioned who I was and if I should go on living to see what I would become. It would have been easy to hit rock-bottom, but my mom offered her hand…and her credit card. I’m talking about the time I accidentally dyed my hair gray.

I’ve been a chemically dependent blonde for a few years. Every six weeks my hair becomes a famous miniseries based on an Alex Haley epic. Read: Roots. All’s fair in love and hair, but one summer I decided to flirt with the dark side. I love chocolatey brown hair, but know I couldn’t achieve it without succumbing to another chemical dependency that could be even more grueling.

I settled for ash brown. The woman on the hair dye box looked blondish, but darker. I liked. This way, I could make a change that wouldn’t seem dramatic to anyone but me. I dyed my hair late at night. My mom, sister, and I had plans to go shopping the next day, so I rinsed my hair, conditioned it, and went to bed. It appeared to be light brown.

I can only imagine what I looked like lying in bed the next morning: birds chirping, suburban dogs barking, and light shining in from the window. The rays of sunlight shone on my sleeping face – freckles dotting my cheeks and nose, dark lashes crunchy with sleep, lips dry and slightly parted, hair as gray as steel wool.

Minutes later, I sat up, saw myself in a mirror, gasped, put in my contacts, and gasped again. My hair wasn’t ash brown. It was just plain ASH. Had the fires still been lit, I’d have jumped in and let the whole thing burn.

I screeched for my mom, instead of leaving my bedroom to seek her. No need to freak her out. I’ve seen the movie Big. I know how terrifying it must be to see your teenage daughter morphed into a geriatric woman.

My mom came in and God bless her, she didn’t laugh. I looked older than her! (She clearly knows to respect her elders). My mom told me to wash my hair again and consulted my sister, Megan.

I rinsed and pulled and cursed and repeated. I checked the shower drain for gray run-off. No such luck.

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I remember being four. That age will forever stand out in my memory. There are days when the memories of that time of my life come back, and I get lost in the midst of what happened then. What I went through back then; my thoughts, how I felt, are still very much a part of me today. I reminisce, and think about wanting to do so many things that were constantly being denied to me. Perhaps I wanted so much to do certain things because my mother was so strict with us—her five children. Being the middle child with two older brothers and two younger sisters—I was the most defiant, and was in need of some extra attention. My mom had her hands full, but still managed to maintain control–even over me, the child who most openly resisted her.

My mother would repeatedly tell me, “You will belong to me until the day that you get married, and even then, you will belong to me.”

At times I would like when my mom would tell me I was hers–it gave me a sense of belonging. And then there were times when that comment would drive me crazy. Couldn’t she see that we were separate beings? I would fight my mother and say “No, I belong to me.”

So many instances come to mind when thinking of all the times I wanted something so badly and my mother would take it away from me. We were in a constant state of tug a war, and she was always winning; slashing my ideas and rejecting my aspirations. I longed to chew gum like the other kids, but my mother wouldn’t allow it. She would say that I didn’t need the sugar, and that it wasn’t “healthy”. What was healthy? I didn’t understand the meaning of the word. Whatever it meant, I knew one thing, that I did not like it. When I asked why gum wasn’t “healthy”, my mom would say “Stop asking so many questions. It just isn’t.” My mom didn’t like the fact that I asked so many questions. At times I wouldn’t talk at all, because I knew that my mother didn’t like that I talked as much as I did. I didn’t want to upset her.

I loved to play with my two older brothers, Eli and Mark, but they didn’t like to play with me. I was a girl, and wasn’t capable of playing like “a boy”. Mark was especially cruel to me, though he didn’t mean to be. We were a year apart. I looked up to him, and wanted to be around him all of the time. Mark couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want a girl, let alone his little sister, following him around. He used to push me away, but I would insist on staying. I suppose I was stubborn back then. Something about him pushing me away– his not wanting me to be around, made me want to stay all the more, just to stick it to him. It got to the point where Mark would really hurt me, but I continued to endure his abuse. I don’t know why.
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