vintage tea length wedding dresses

I REMEMBER WHY MY SOUL IS ALSO ANIMAL SOUL.

December 3, 2017
Part One.

At our home on San Pedro Street
the fragrance of Bridal Bouquet flowers
mingling with the scent of emptied penicillin bottles
i found under the porch turned into toys
of this curious child at age five.
hundreds of penicillin bottles i found and fancied
i never knew were going to plant uneraseable memory
in my childish mind and childlike innocence
never realized at once that the mixed odors of flowers
and penicillin were to keep track of my journey
into my own time in this world.
the genesis of that from beneath the porch
it had started as toys leading me towards a painful
child development , innocent, curious, shy, dreamy.

Manoy Kikoy Cedo faithfully came to give Mama the shots
Oh Isaw the scars on her hips and butts, now, looking back
i cant help not to cry remembering how Mama endured the syringes on a daily basis but had given her seventy-two years.
of life from San Pedro to San Antonio Street,
I know now why Mama had lived to be seventy-two.
she distracted herself from the pains , the bleeding, the couphing, by taking into her arms the softness of a kitty.
One day we decided to give the kitty a name
that time was the Kolynos toothpaste.
I suggested, "Why not Kolynos ?"
Mama said, " Why not Colina instead ?"
and, so, was the first chapter of my love for animals.
and to this day at my golden age, and Mama had long gone
from my life, the name, Colina remained eternally Celis .

I was still a child when we could not find Colina
i called and called everywhere . but she was nowhere.
finally I went down to the porch , the bottles !
maybe she might be there, looking yonder
I saw Colina, and , it was not my imagination, in a second or seconds, appeared more than twenty cats all at once !
my childlike instinct told me they were not cats , but fairies !
our porch and beneath the porch was enchanted !
But, I was not afraid of the apparition !
instead, I was amazed and spellbound !
ever since then, I was to be guided by animal spirits!
so no wonder the love, the caring, the emotion !
Mama, for all her faults and strictness was at heart, basically
very kind and soft and had a soft spot in her heart for animals.

I was in the late early 60s when she was taken to a hospital
she slipped one the shiny floor and broke her knee
surgery was urgent and so she stayed far from the home
while doctors connected stainless steel to her knee.
Pronto, a ringer for Lassie, would sleep just by the door of her bedroom and slept there quietly till his Mistress came home.
Mama and me learned hoe to cool down the hypertension of Pronto by splashing cold pump water on him.
Then, there was Ringo, a shorthair white and spotted dog,
that dog loved to go with Mama to the ricefield riding with her in a tricycle, this ritual everyday, till one day, Mama hid from Ringo
closing the doors behind her, so that Ringo does not run along lest the dogmeat eaters fancied him.!
WHOA ! Ringo went to the window and jumped from there to the concrete floor and ran so fast to catch up with the tricycle !

One day at the Singer sewing machine, Mama busy with a dress when I heard a noise coming from the drawer/ uguton
babies of the house mouse, so pink and so small !
Mama , the punisher, with the belt, could not resist my cries
she spared the babies and left them alone while she sewed .
Or, one day, beyond the kitchen on the backyard bathroom was
a dying cat. Mama was nursing and sighing with pity for the cat.
this, that , no wonder, my heart learned to Feel for animals too!
Or, when the day I came home for the weekend from St. Agnes
Academy, Mama so eagerly told me she had midwifed a Mamacat birthing her kitties beside her bed,
Mama , the disciplinarian was a Paradox: hard. strong, but soft
as the wings of a butterfly for animals !
imagine the impact of that on my teen age years !

I was already a young teacher at Mabini Memorial Colleges.
and, at 24 years only, without a diploma, The Alfelors took me in
to teach English after they got impressed with my English proficiency while attending summer classes for Spanish!
Spanish? Whoa ! I got a failing grade at the University of the East, in Manila ! Spanish? Boy oh Boy I was so bored with my teachers I turned truant from the subject
only, to, my shock, that thirty or forty years later I had to learn
to speak Spanish in America !!!!?????!!!
going back in time then, coming home from Iriga City
my orange cat, Lencoy just stayed at the window and refused to eat. imagine this more than twenty year old teacher, going to church on a Friday afternoon on her knees towards the altar vintage tea length wedding dresses
never mind who was looking , decoration time for a Saturday wedding, so what, but, i knelt all the way to altar begging God to
please heal my Lencoy or I would get ill too.
God listened to this foolish young teacher and Lencoy recovered.( and, why did I not kneel all the way to altar for my first Brokenhearted love interest !!! crazy this woman
but, this Facebook had taught me I was born an Empath and my far away ancestors from another time were Fairies !
so, they call me Too Sensitive, Too Dramatic,Too Emotional
but because I am also Too Loving, Too Caring and Too Kind !

A sister studying Zoology at Legazpi College ran out of time
looking for a cat for disecting in a laboratory
came rushing home to Libon to get my fatted and loved Lencoy!
my first trauma, watching myself cry and scream with protest
and flailing and wailing while they forced my Lencoy away from my arms to throw into the sako/ sack.
of course, i was defenseless and Lencoy helpless and wailing
I can never forget the trauma imagining how Lencoy was killed
did they strike at the sack with a bat , or did thsy just stomped on my beloved Lencoy ?my heart breaks recalling this incident
it was that time I became a sensitive soul !
and, to this time, despise anyone who practice animal cruelty !
blame this emotion on my childhood of memories
the fragrance of Bridal Bouquet flowers, the penicillin bottles
the cats, the dogs, and my long suffering, sacrificing, industrious Mama, homemaker, farmer, seamstress, mother, religious,
God-fearing and lover of animals , my Cat Lady Mama !