Your brain is a powerful electro-chemical computer. Your mind is a wealth-carrier – a chest filled with hidden treasures. Governments rule people. Thoughts rule the world. Our minds are powerful instruments capable of shaping our reality.
I grew up with stories of my parents and their childhood. Their triumphs and their losses. The joys and sorrows. Their fears and their dreams. Their values and convictions, work ethics and GOD.
This year marks the 59th year since my father disappeared in the sea. Seven days of search came up empty. But the stories he told us are timeless. The stories are guiding light for me. Stories nourish and point to where we came from and where we choose to go. That when you think it’s over, stories remind you it’s not over. You now then write your own stories branching out from their stories.
Everything about my father was about learning. He was a great thinker unafraid of going against the grain. He loved books. He was a wonderful storyteller. He told stories of his childhood growing up without a father. He grew like an orphan. His father died when he was ten. His mother went back to Babeldaob. He lived with relatives until he finished Japanese’s fifth grade and went to work until.he passed at age 44.
One story that etched in my mind is this: as a boy he went to live in Ngerkebesang with relatives and walked to school in Koror everyday. One Sunday he got on a “mlai ra bul e meyus el mera tochel a demal meng ngomdasue ra demal.” I guess I’m doing the same thing today – thinking of my father.
Men like my father cannot die. They are with us still. Real in memory as they were in flesh. Loving and beloved forever. (Richard Llewellyn from his book made into a movie directed by John Ford, How Green Was My Valley)