** Something that I got in my mail **

A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year – old grandson.

The old man’s hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred, and his step faltered. The family ate together at the table. But the elderly grandfather’s shaky hands and failing sight made eating difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor. When he grasped the glass, milk spilled on the tablecloth.

The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess.

“We must do something about father,” said the son.

“I’ve had enough of his spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the
floor.”

So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner. There, Grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner. Since Grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl. When the family glanced in Grandfather’s direction, sometimes he had a tear in his eye as he sat alone.

Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled food.

The four-year-old watched it all in silence.

One evening before supper, the father noticed his son playing with wood scraps on the floor. He asked the child sweetly,

“What are you making?”

Just as sweetly, the boy responded,

“Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and Mama to eat your food in when I grow up.” The four-year-old smiled and went back to work.

The words so struck the parents so that they were speechless. Then tears started to stream down their cheeks. Though no word was spoken, both knew what must be done. That evening the husband took Grandfather’s hand and gently led him back to the family table. For the remainder of his days he ate every meal with the family. And for some reason, neither husband nor wife seemed to care any longer when a fork was dropped, milk spilled, or the tablecloth soiled.

On a positive note, I’ve learned that, no matter what happens, how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles four things: a rainy day, the elderly, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.

I’ve learned that, regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life..” I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back I’ve learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you But, if you focus on your family, your friends, the needs of others, your work and doing the very best you can, happiness will find you I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day, you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch — holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.

I’ve learned that you should pass this on to everyone you care about .I just did.

Words

Last weekend I learned to differentiate between tactile and tactful. In short, tactile is referring to sense of touch or good with the hands while tactful is about being considerate and discreet.

To make it easier for me to remember, I use thumbtacks. If you give a box of thumbtacks to a tacktile person, he or she could make an art out of them. However, if you are not tactful with that same person, you might get some thumbtacks stuck on your b-u-t-t… That is the easiest way for me to remember…

Memories

Thumbtacks bring back memories during my junior high years. My friends and I were in a class where our brains were more dominant than our muscles. We had a huge problem during the lunch break at the school cafeteria as the other boys from the other classes somehow had their muscles developed much faster than their brains.

We were taught to queue for our food and they were taught the same but somehow, due to some unexplained events, those teaching about being civilized such as, taking turns by queuing up, failed to stick in their head. I guess brains and muscles have different ways of learning stuffs…

As a results, those students would dash to the food counter like bulls on a stampede. Before we knew it, we were pushed to the sides and everywhere else except anywhere near the food…

Brainstorming

This went on for months and we decided to have a brainstorming session. Furthermore, that’s the only part of our body that was stronger than those bulls. Finally, inspired by the MadMax movie and porcupines, we had devised a defence mechanism that would not prevent us from being pushed around but instead, would painfully punish those who came in contact with us. Sadistic but somewhat necessary as muscles would definitely respond to that…

Defence Mode On

It was really simple. We bought lots of thumbtacks. Then we just pushed the thumbtacks from inside our shirts and pants so that the protruding pins would prick those unsuspecting bulls. Placing them strategically around our body, those tacks could not really be seen unless someone would really come close.

The outcome was a big success. We heard lots of “Argghhh!” “Ouchhh”, “Adoii” … And since then, although we were still being pushed around, we had the satisfaction of knowing that we had successfully delivered lots of pain to them…

Well, their brains were capable of processing the painful sensations but expectedly. was unable to figure out how to avoid such pain in the future…

Victory

After some time, the school authority realized that there was a problem and shortly after that, prefects were assigned to manage the food queues and we were told to take off our thumbtacks… Yeah, we were caught…

Anyway, what did we do with the thumbtacks since we had lots of them?

To be continued…

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Updated on Feb 7, 2010: This entry will not be continued…