Happy Home

In recent years, there has been a surge of single-parent and extended families. The nuclear family (defined as a group that includes only the father, mother, and biological children) is vanishing.

I prefer to define family as a household with a father, mother, children (biological or adopted), and househelps, who treat every individual with respect, and whose love for each other and God is boundless.  

That’s why when OMF Literature, my publisher, asked me to write a series of storybooks 20 months ago on a family, I chose to call it “Happy Home.”

The characters are based on real-life people who had been an important part of my youth, juxtaposed into a family that consists of a father, a mother, three children (two are biological and one, adopted) and a fiercely loyal househelp.

Two books were scheduled for launching at the International Book Fair last September, but heartbreaking snags got in the way, the details of which I don't want to remember. Finally on December 20, three months later, just before Christmas, the first book in the series will be launched.

It is called Coming Home. 

A talented artist, whose body of work I have admired from a distance, was dropped from heaven to illustrate "Happy Home." His name is Leo Kempis Ang and while making the book come to life, he has become a cyber friend. His humorous/Pinoy style fits the book series to a tee, a joy I share with my editor, Joan. Below are some of his sketches that have been put to bed.  
                   

Coming Home has come . . . in God’s own time.

What was also dropped from heaven after the aborted book launching was an unexpected grace of patience.

For someone who was born with a wart called impatience and thrives best in a quick-paced work environment, I received exactly what I needed.  

Wait, God must have whispered in my ear. And I listened. 

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven . . .” Ecclesiastes 3:1

(I will blog about the details of the launching as soon as everything is finalized. You are all invited to come and join the fun!)