A Token to be treasured

When i visited my kids, we went to a amusement park. my PAUL is asking me a lot of tokens so he can play more video games, when we get home he gave me 1 token and told me "MOMMY YOU KEEP THAT TOKEN WHO KNOWS YOU HAVE NO MORE MONEY TO SPEND at least YOU HAVE A TOKEN TO GIVE". I was so touch by his words and i say Nah!!
you keep that one for yourself...and i totaly forget all about it.. until today i found the token hiding in the bag, I never knew he put it in there. i just stop and look around what an empty life i had I MISS THEM SO MUCH .. ANYWAY i had a video made so whenever i miss them i will keep them playing on and on the letter was made in december and i post it on thier friendster account by january and the video is made just as soon i came back from my visit ,

Centenarian rosary maker a papal awardee

source from inquirer mindanao by:By Romel M. Oribe
Mindanao Bureau


Filed Under: Senior Citizens, Human Interest, Awards and Prizes, Churches (organisations)

I STAND and watch as she does her craft on a wheelchair that's quite big for her birdlike frame.

She adds a length of chain to the jump ring attached to a crucifix she's holding and closes it. She then "builds" the center by attaching three small jump rings to each side of the center, adding a length of chain to each, and then closing each jump ring securely.

Beginning with the chain attached to the crucifix, she adds one "Our Father" bead, opens the other end of the eye pin, and adds a length of chain. She adds three "Hail Mary" beads and leaves the last eye pin open, then adds a length of chain to attach the next "Our Father" bead.

After making sure all eye pins are securely closed, she looks up and smiles at me.

Dionisia Portillo Lozada may have turned 100 years old on Nov. 27 but she still makes rosaries that she gives as presents to relatives, friends and strangers. This and more make her everybody's Lola Doni.

Lola Doni's piety is inborn. Early in her life she wanted to be a nun, a dream she pursued by paying the price of leaving Tago, her birthplace in Surigao del Sur, and be separated from her family at a young age to be a graciada--a working student with exceptional intelligence--at the St. Catherine School in Carcar, Cebu.

100-percent grade
There she finished high school with honors in 1926, even earning a grade of 100 percent in some subjects.

Lola Doni was all set to enter the nunnery in 1934, but her parents, Laureano Portillo and Facunda Prado, intervened. And so she went home and taught at the Santa Teresa School in Tandag, Surigao del Sur.

A year later, she transferred to the Purisima School in Tago and met Tomas C. Lozada, who became her husband on Dec. 7, 1935.

In 1944, she gave birth to Bobby, her fourth and only surviving child whom she raised single-handedly to become a successful lawyer, an executive and a businessman rolled into one.

She picks up the unfinished rosary that she had earlier put on the table beside her. She separates the "Our Father" bead by a length of chain and adds a decade consisting of 10 "Hail Mary" beads.

Lola Doni has her share of sorrows.

Her first three children died during their infancy and she herself became a widow when Bobby was only 6 years old. But her greatest agony was when Tommy and Maan, her only two grandchildren from Bobby and Emelyn, met their death aboard an ill-fated flight of Air Philippines seven Aprils ago. He was 25; she was 22.

Of this tragedy, Lola Doni felt sad but not resentful. She didn't ask God why this happened to her when she had been a good and faithful servant all her life.

She has served and extended material and financial support to the Church, championing the cause of the poor, and living a Spartan life despite her social status, becoming a catechist and active leader of organizations, like the Hijas de Maria, Apostolada, and Legion of Mary, and taking care of the Sto. Niño chapel in Lapaz among other works of mercy.

But such was not Lola Doni's ways. Instead, she asked God for more strength to continue her life's mission of serving Him through His church and His flock.

She completes four more sets of decades, each separated by an "Our Father" bead, except the last one, which she attaches directly to the other side of the center.

Exemplary service
On July 21, Lola Doni received from Pope Benedict XVI the papal award "Pro Ecclesia Et Pontifice," a prestigious distinction and honor given to a devout Catholic for exemplary service to the Church and fellowmen.

Lola Doni accepted the award from the bishop of Tandag, Msgr. Nerio Odchimar, at the San Nicolas de Tolentino Cathedral in Tandag in an elaborate ceremony attended by relatives, friends, and church and government officials.

Four months later, on Nov. 30, three days after her birthday, the family of Lola Doni threw a grand fete worthy of a centenarian at the gym of the Polytechnic State College in Tago town.

Relatives from all over the country and abroad came and paid tribute to this woman of substance who continues to walk her talk even if she's now wheelchair-bound due to a bad fall that surgery wasn't able to correct.

Every time someone asks what her secret to a longer life is, Lola Doni always says: inner peace. But then she would blink her eyes that still have no use for glasses and smile, as if teasing that it couldn't get simpler and harder than that.

Just as she has perfected the craft of rosary making, Lola Doni has indeed perfected her life as a living offering to God. That's for 100 years and counting!

I stand and watch in awe as she makes the final assembly of the long string of beads and the centerpiece. She holds the string up by one end and lets it dangle freely.

After seeing no "twist" in the string, she attaches the free end of the centerpiece. And the rosary becomes whole.

HE SHOULD KNOW

when breaking up with my ex, he told me "you'll never find anyone like me ever!" i thought to myself " i should hope not. you're the kind i want to get rid of."

A true- not happy- ending -fairy tale

There was a princess who fell in love to a handsome prince,
One day a witch came and stole her prince away,
the princess cried and cried until no more tears left to fall.
the princess stood up with courage and success,
and the princess realize,
"MAYBE HE WANTS TO BE WITH THE WITCH THAN THE PRINCESS'