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Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

Friendship

Friendship, my darlingest, and the responsible keeping of it is the barest requirement for me to exist as myself.

I can stand to lose all that I am as a person, I can bear to give up all that I am and still remain true to myself for as long as I remain true to my friends.

I will and I shall never betray my friendships.

For I am all about the relationships I choose to nurture and verily, my loveliest love, these relationships are all that I am. Which is why, my loveliest, darlingest Miyang, you are - from always to always - from among all those numberless lights, my first contact star, my binary, one of my most bestest of friends.

If I lose you or if you are lost to me, then I know I am lost forever - for then, my darlingest dear, I know I shall not be able to find my way back Home to where we all must be - at the final gathering of our nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.

I know this, my Miyang, because I know that I have been at the brink of the deepest darkness a number of times; I have been at those points where only the slightest of truths remain between reality and insanity and it was always the thoughts of you that was sent to me to keep me from being pulled in. It is always your starlight smile that makes life beautiful to me once again. You restore me to my freedom, my darlingest Annelies Marie, it is your company that makes me understand what it is to keep to my peace in God as well as in Country.

When I ask myself what our LORD God is trying to awaken in my soul by placing you in my heart of hearts - these days I now understand it is the value of immortal friendships - those friendships that our LORD's holy angels themselves have and hold with each other - purely spiritual and all-loving.

It is of the same substance that imbues each of our nations with their gathering sense - that potent sense of a self-cognizant identity, unique and meaningful to a set of people chosen by God from eternity, that binds the labors of our generations together, setting our hearts adrift towards a common destiny.

What have always animated the remembrance of the patriotic fires of the nations of Mankind which is the same spirit that binds us to each other in hope and good will I am made to recognize now, my darlingest dear, by the peculiar light of our little friendship, as this immense spirit - the universal spirit of Country.

This is why I say that one life lost to war is one life too many. How dark and terrible indeed have the wake of our past been, my darlingest dear - not just for your nation, my love, but for all our nations, indeed, for all of our shared humanity.

And to give up on these friendships, my darlingest dear, like Cain giving up on Abel, is to give up on our hopes for peace.

Imagine if our heroes gave up on these friendships, my love, imagine if - say for example in my own nation - our beloved Jose Rizal gave up on the spirit of Country for the sake of blood ties with kin and self how deprived my own nation would be, how impoverished the will of our Republic, how dim indeed the fires of Filipino patriotism.

Now, let us imagine once again if our beloved Ninoy Aquino denied us this same spirit and chose instead the comfort and the certainty of those same blood ties with both family and self which though good when misplaced, fragments the common good, how my own nation would have not been spared further tears, bloodshed and suffering.

In the case of our elder sister, the USA, I imagine if George Washington denied his own fledgling nation this same benefit, how utterly different things would have been. For all that man wanted for himself after the good fight was fought was his wife and his home yet his heart can not refuse what ties always transcend the call of blood that the shedding of the same may be averted and the suffering cries of the many may be answered by the One will of Divine Providence.

And I can go on and on with examples of these, my darlingest dear, each one just as potent and just as real as the other.

Through this perspective do I see the division of war and the belongnings that harken us back to peace. The past when we only glance at it is truly the color of shadow but when we should take time to ponder on these things, we find that the past is like the tapestry of the night sky and the history of the ages of Mankind like one great celestial turning from the autumnal dusk of our faded Eden unto that springtime new of that blessed morning at the restoration of all things. And we only have to shed the spirit of war to take on the trappings of peace.

This is what I fervently desire for my own Filipino nation, my darlingest dear - for I observe my people closely in my heart of hearts and I find us, each and every single one of us, all amidst the noise and the haste of the incessant labors of our lives, to be beautiful indeed, beautiful for being beheld by Beauty Itself.

And so, enthralled by what I see and understand in God and Country, I will do anything to win the peace for my own nation, my darlingest. For a nation is always, always more than what the naked eye can perceive in its very limited range of vision so if one does not care to stop in the silence, amidst the noise and the haste, one might miss it all completely - to the regret of many.

And indeed, I know our world must now stop and think about these things in the silence of each our hearts that we may as one family of nations figure out a clear path ahead for our inhabited earth. For many hearts now know much indeed depends upon our coming together than by our keeping apart and that though the peace that we may always strive to build together shall always be an imperfect peace, it is only through perfect acceptance of these, our timeless friendships together, that the hopes of a perfect peace are kept alive to the vision of our nations.

Those who gather gather together, those who scatter scatter together - belonging is over division, peace over war, light over darkness, truth over all things false - one is led to the other - this is what I know and though I do have a lot of other things to figure out in myself as a person to myself - as a friend to my friends, I know I am first. For if I am true to this hard earned lesson, my love, if I am at the very least, true to the keeping of the you and I, then when all of these storms that always seem to frequent my life clears, I know I will be myself again.

You are an everliving proof of this, my Miyang, you and a numberless multitude of stars in the unseen skies above my soul - all of whom, in God and Country, for God and Country, from always to always, I call my friends.

Some of them know me, some of them are known only to me, but all of them I chose to light the native skies of my life so that the darkness of my exile may not be as dark and that the loneliness of the eastward way may not be as glum.

These days, I may be confused and feeling useless as myself - I am besieged by problems and I know I do need to do a lot more searching - a lot more wandering - but if one keeps to one's bearings through one's timeless friendships - how can one ever get lost?

I love you, my loveliest love.

Always to always,

Pusing