Dark Night, Bright Future

Dec 31st was a day filled with joy for me and my family, one that we will never forget.

I live in a tiny home with my parents, son, and niece. Up until a week ago, it was just 1 big room. This room was everything for us. It's where we slept, where we cooked and ate, did our laundry, where we spent our time talking and spent our time together. No walls, no curtains, no privacy! We didn't even have a bathroom, so we would have to ask our neighbors anytime we needed to. It was like this for months. Then, with a little bit of luck and some hard work, we finally had saved enough money to make some changes to our home. We were able to put up some walls and make 2 small bedrooms next to the living room/kitchen, and we are currently having a bathroom installed. Now we are happy with our little house. Thankfully we were able to finish most by the holidays, as that was my only xmas wish for my family.

On New Year's Eve morning, my sister came early to help us cook and prepare our small celebration. My 2nd brother also came to help. We made pancit, fried chicken, menudo, deviled eggs, and a few other filipino dishes. Later in the day, my son's father came to celebrate with us, and also a few of our friends from our old neighborhood. We ate, drank, played with the kids, sang karaoke, and really enjoyed being as a family all day into the night. When New Year came, we wished each other a happy new year, and continued to celebrate for a while ... but around 12:30am, we had what we thought was a brownout. We lost power, so the party was pretty much over since we couldn't sing anymore and had no lights. Our friends went home, and the family went to sleep.

In the morning, power was still off. We thought that maybe somebody had cut a wire with fireworks or something, but we were unsure, and this was the 1st brownout we had experienced since moving to this home months ago. We didn't let it ruin our day though, as some of our friends came back over to keep celebrating the holiday. Then, we had our biggest surprise of all ... into our house walked my oldest brother, whom we had not seen or heard from in over 3 years! It was almost like a christmas miracle to see him again after all of this time! We all cried with joy, and were so happy with what the new year had brought to us.

We later learned that it was not a brownout that night: it was our envious neighbors who cut our power. You see, in the place where we live, there are not many homes that have their own source of electricity. You must borrow from neighbors and use their power lines, and pay them more than double to use it. The neighbor we borrow from had become envious about our small blessings. Our fixed house, our family and friends party we had for New Year, and the new bathroom we have started building. It was all too much for them. They are not happy with their situation, so they didn't like to see us so happy for once. So they cut our power, trying to bring our cheer down.

But through all of our trials, we have learned to be strong. Yes, having no power has affected us, of course. But we still have family and friends. We have my brother back. We have our health. And all of these things are more blessings than our neighbor or anybody else can take from us. Yes it is hard, no power for 3 days now, but soon we will have power again from our other neighbor. And no matter what happens, we will always have each other and our love. So, yes, we may have had some dark nights, and I know there may be many more to come. But we are fighting through it and will continue to fight, and now, more than ever, we KNOW that our future is bright!

Happy holidays to all, I hope you have a wonderful, blessed 2011!!