The permanent absence of the love of one’s life can leave us paralyzed, dazed, empty and at a loss to resume the mundane business of daily living.I have walked this planet, visited unfamiliar territories and encountered many souls from different walks of life. Friendships were made and broken. Love was lost or found.Throughout the years, only one remarkable person remained my constant love, my mother. She was my home, my beacon of strength and center of my universe. Marita Banaad Laurel was a woman in a class all her own. I will miss you forever, Mama.

My father, Roberto Archimedes Laurel, was a good and solid man. A young girl's first love with a smile that melted the heart and big welcoming arms to envelope and kiss the hurt away. He left us too soon. Kiss ma for me. Ang saiyo nagmamahal . . .

Marita and Bobby Laurel

i carry your heart with me
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) 

Edward Estlin Cummings 



Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, 
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, 
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum 
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. 

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead 
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead. 
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, 
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. 

He was my North, my South, my East and West, 
My working week and my Sunday rest, 
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; 
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. 

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, 
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, 
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods; 
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Wystan Hugh Auden