Bad things lead to GOOD realisation.

You’d think that after a year of crying because of extreme homesickness - being away from friends, family and my beloved pets - that I have run out of tears. That’s what I thought. But when I got ill for a whole month, I cried some more. But I didn’t cry as much because James looked after me like a dedicated NHS nurse. I thought that must be me running out of tears,
Until Friday, 25th of September.

I was chuffed Friday morning, so, so incredibly happy and excited. The previous night James had booked the hotel that we are staying at in London. After my many trips to the doctors and hospital which resulted to me conquering my fear of needles and injections another good thing happened to me. I realised I should live my life. I’ve been blessed with a lot of my prayers answered and what am I doing wasting it? So I thought London is practically next door to me now (for 22 years it’s been 8,000 miles away) and I always admired video clips and photos of it. I think it is a magical place. And what am I doing still admiring it from here? I live a 2 minute-walk from the train station! The following day after I got out of the hospital I searched for cheap hotels as I think there is no point staying at a posh hotel when all we need is a bed and bathroom. I’m not going to London to waste time in a hotel room. And then I browsed through train tickets, The Eye tickets, open bus tour tickets and everything ticket we will need. I have listed places that I wanted to see and had to narrow it down to fit in the 3 nights we are spending there. I left some low priority places to give us enough time to properly take London in as well as to give us incentive to go back again.
So you see, I was so chuffed that I finally organised our ‘Little London Tour’.
But on Friday morning all that changed.
At first it didn’t bother me so much seeing on BBS news that Manila is flooded. It always floods in Manila. But something was unusual - the village where my brother lives with his wife and 6 year-old son was mentioned on the telly. I quickly logged on the Filipino Community website where I watch TV Patrol (and other Philippine programmes) regularly.
I have never worried about my brother before. He’s always looked after himself. But when I found out that their house is underwater and is staying at the safety of their neighbour’s two-storey house I got really worried. It is so different watching the floods when you know your loved ones may be on one of the rooftops waving white cloth hoping to be rescued. I suddenly felt guilty that whilst I was filled with joy over the London holiday, my brother was suffering. The news that they are safe and that the flood has subsided a wee bit somehow lessened my pain. But to find out on Monday morning that they’ve lost most of their stuff to the flood still devastated me. The important thing is that they are all safe.

On Sunday morning James and I left our flat early to go to his parents’ house to see them. They were out on a walk so whilst we wait, I made them some soured apple pie streusels and special fruit scones. That is the first time me and James went to visit them together since moving to our flat. Maddie has visited us like 20 times since leaving 184.

On Monday morning I got a call from Maddie saying she wants to pay for my driving lessons and the cost of provisional driving licence. I tried to refuse but she said she already wired money to our account. She’s quite pleased to know that I wanted to learn to drive since James is not bothered about it just at the moment.
After our 5 minute convo that is when I found out about my brother losing everything. I didn’t know what to feel then. I had things to be very happy about - I am feeling a lot better after a month of being almost bedridden; I have a trip to London booked and I am learning to drive - but I felt guilty to feel happy because of my brother’s situation.
That night, I got a text from Maddie asking if my mum and family are OK. I replied to her saying mum’s OK brother is not as his village is one of the worst hit areas.
Immediately she offered to help and immediately I refused. I just felt like she has done too much already. But Maddie really has a generous heart, she’s always been involved in various charities. So in the end she said she intends to help whether I agree or not.
It was very likely but unexpected. Once again I felt really lucky to still be surrounded by kind and caring people. She said ‘they are my extended family and if we could help, we’d love to’. The following day we had £300 in our bank account to send to my brother. And she sent me a text that read: “scones for payment please xx”.
This is real blessing - it is not the money but the thought. The first thing she said to James when they spoke about helping my brother was that ‘I can’t even imagine his 6 year old son lost all his toys’. I must have done something right in my life.