Well, life has plenty of reasons to celebrate, just like Independence Day. But sometimes, one can feel that celebrating may be inappropriate when reflection stemming from unpleasant experiences may be more important than having a good time.

I have been reflecting on my recent visit to my mother's.

I came there to check on my brother and despite the modicum of distaste it brings me whenever I'd be exposed once more to her words that I'd rather have muted to somebody else's ears, I'd sometime regret even having stepped on the cracked porch.

So I went on in and saw my mom as she's never been so emaciated before. She was so thin! Couple that with not wearing her dentures when she met me at the foyer, I was moved with pity as to the frailty of her appearance, this once an iron lady of our household.

She told me that she has not eaten for days because of some glitch in the computers where she gets her pension money, she's without any doe to buy food and she was to proud to call us or ask some from her wary but still kindly neighbors in that not-so-good part of my city.

"I'll be back a sec, okay Mom?"

I went to the nearby grocer, with all the money in my pocket (I dare not withdraw from the ATM nearby, always the paranoid guy, I am.) and bought all the foodstuffs she and my alcoholic brother would need and certainly draw nutrition from, so I deliberately left out cholesterol-rich stuff and more on veggies and fruits and a lot of bread and cereals.

I came back, my arms laden with bulky paper bags, and handed them to her. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and thanked me in such a way that really unnerved me, like she just showed me after a very long time her vulnerability.

I checked on my brother. As usual, I found him sleeping off a hang-over, with a little puke on his shirt. I made a mental note to bring him some shirts my wife bought me that I didn't like. I wanted to bring him to our house in the hopes that I could get him to stop drinking, but my wife just said one word: the kids.

My mom saw me out of the door and though she wanted to thank me profusely, I don't know, she didn't have the heart to say it, though her eyes did. I just want to run away, flee the place that very sec. Because I didn't want her to see me cry. Because, memories flashing in my mind that moment, I saw how she ignored my crying when she tore my Spidey and Superman comic books when I was a little boy. She went on throwing my He-Man action figures in the trash her fellow workers brought me as gifts. She took the picture of my first girlfriend, and when I asked for it, she said she disposed of it and I should concentrate my studies.

I didn't know why that came about in my head, but I figured that won't change anything now. I fled, and stopped at a vacant lot a few blocks down, and sobbed my heart out. A few neighborhood teenagers called me a sissy. I didn't care.

I went home.

Why the sudden flashback? is it my vengeful self? Is it just a psychological comparison of the past and present? Is Our Lord telling me something here? Am I asking the wrong questions? All I know right now, I will go back and check on them more often.

I am praying for them, for you, and for all my friends. And I am praising God that I am still alive and well.

Happy Fourth everybody.