Poinsettias from Bella Vista

“Do not stand beside my grave weeping;
I am not there.
I am with you, till we meet again!” Anonymous

I bought my first two pots of Christmas poinsettias – their bright red leaves heralding the coming of the holiday season.

I just had to buy them at the roadside in cool Tagaytay City last Sunday after a delightful lunch at the Taal Vista Hotel ridge café with my very dear friend from the Focolare House down the road, Fr. George. He and I shared the sumptuous Filipino buffet and enjoyed the in-house Filipino dance troupe, but the best part came from the dessert! Our order of a “chocolate eruption” lived up to our highest expectations! Moist chocolate cake and thick native chocolate syrup inside topped with vanilla ice cream!

Can anything be more wicked than that? Ahh, but it was delicious as always. Fr. George who is Swedish-German knows chocolates and he rates this one a top-class dessert! He was also one of Sonny’s best friend-priest and he has helped me cope so he is very nurturing  to me and my sanity.

Poinsettias are super-special to me. My  late beloved Sonny doted on them every year, filling up our home, Bella Vista with pots and pots of the blazing red Christmas plants, usually from King Louis  Farms at the Manila Seedling Environmental Center, but the early blooms in Tagaytay were too appealing to be ignored, so one will decorate our altar with Sonny’s picture  in Bella Vista, and the other will be on top of his crypt at the Sta. Maria De La Strada garden columbarium in Quezon City for All Saints’ Day until All Souls’ Day!

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Marking All Saints’ Day makes us aware of our own mortality, but it can be enjoyable as we grow old provided we do it graciously and with healthy bodies and keen minds, right?

Ageing gracefully means to delay the ravages of time, and with people in the beauty business, the big promise is the not-so-subtle hint that it can be reversed (though not too drastically).

A senior citizen who radiates serenity from an inner, healthy glow attracts people sans liposuction or grueling hours at the gym. Nevertheless, since — as the Greeks put it — a sound mind in a sound body is ideal, many seniors now monitor what they put in their bodies. They pay much more attention to what they eat and drink, especially supplementary foods.

So when a well-wisher sent me Ensure Gold, a supplement for those in my age bracket (yes, I am a senior citizen and proudly so), I scrutinized it carefully. Made by Abbott Nutrition, the product supposedly promotes healthy digestion and a healthy heart, strong bones, and boosts immunity. In short, exactly the functions that tend to falter with age especially for those 60 years old and above. Ensure Gold comes in powder form and is supposed to be drunk daily to get the nutritional boost needed by sexagenarians and those hardy souls to flourish for another two decades or more.

Ensure Gold’s Nutrisure System which includes a dual fiber formulation does the trick. As we all know, fiber aids in nutrient absorption and expedites digestion as it contains Zinc, an essential mineral for maintaining a healthy skin, immune system and resistance to infection.

Ensure Gold also contains 28 vitamins and minerals to help ward off ailments. It contains Omega 3 which lowers triglycerides, the main form of fat in foods associated with heart disease and increases HDL, the so-called good cholesterol. Some studies have shown that Omega 3 helps prevent blood clotting and high blood pressure. Omega 3, working in conjunction with Omega 6 which is also in Ensure Gold, plays a crucial role in brain function, helps maintain cardiac and bone health, as well as regulates metabolism.

That’s a lot of benefits which one can enjoy if he drinks the supplement daily, a practice made easy by the fact that one only needs to mix Ensure Gold with a glass of warm water. I decided to add it to my growing stock of must-have supplements. After all, even if food is best enjoyed in its natural state, the quantity that must be consumed to meet the minimum daily need is often daunting. Try finishing off a whole head of lettuce in one sitting if you don’t believe me.

Preparing wholesome meals everyday has also become a luxury because of time and money. Our hurried and harried lives push us into fast, convenient foods. With double income households, gone are the days when our mothers stayed at home and prepared lutong bahay meals that were rich in nutrition and textured in taste. Then there are the rising prices of healthy food like fruits and vegetables. Compounded by typhoon damages, vegetables are now almost priced the same as meat!
Of course, we always do our best, despite the odds, to serve and consume healthy foods so we should be selective about our nutritional sources. These days, thank goodness, there is Ensure Gold.

As anybody who hits the 60th mark will tell you, physical, mental and emotional changes are more noticeable and crippling if they are allowed to deteriorate without appropriate interventions. You cannot set back the clock but you can slow the ticking of the clock! (Like leading less-stressful lives and forgiving those who wronged you not once, twice but seven times seven!) You can also do regular moderate exercise, avoid toxic relationships, enrich your diet with well-formulated supplements and strengthen your link with the Divine God!

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The lone business with its main headquarters in my district Paco in the heart of Manila, multi-national giant Unilever, Philippines was not spared from the fury of typhoon Ondoy.

Situated between two tributaries of the Pasig River, the main offices and factories of the company that gave us memorable campaigns as “Wais si Misis!” and “My name is Nicole.” saw for the first time in its 83-year existence flood waters rising and taking over its compound. Nothing was spared as water rose to unprecedented levels that immediately drenched the first floor areas of its buildings. While on the other side of town – in Manggahan, Pasig – the premises that is home to its Selecta brand (and my favorite ice cream flavors!) also saw the same thing happening to them.

Given the extent of the damage that the company sustained, the first thing that Unilever chairman Fernando Fernandez did was to ensure that all employees were accounted for. A phone brigade was set up to call each and every employee to make sure that they were out of harm’s way. If help was needed, then help was given. As a result, a total of 500 employees were reported to have been affected by flooding – almost half of the total workforce! 

With offices shut down for a week after the typhoon due to rehabilitation work, the unaffected employees and those who comprised the Integrated League of Unilever Volunteers or InLuv trooped to their warehouse in Las Piñas City and began a relief operation drive that resulted in putting together almost 20,000 relief packs or almost R10 million worth of rice, sardines and various Unilever home and personal care and food products. All were immediately turned over to nearby affected communities in Manila, Pasig, Pasay, and Laguna in coordination with the DSWD and local government units. A Knorr “Sopas ng Pag-Asa” or Soup Kitchen was also brought to evacuation centers in Ultra and Rosario Sports Complex.

A calamity like no other deserves the combined forces of all. But a special salute goes out to all the volunteers who braved the risk of bad weather, fatigue and even sickness to help fellow Filipinos.  Yes, Filipino resilience keeps our head above water!