Going . . . Going . . . Gone

This three-word phrase came to me as I woke up early this morning. And I feel the need to write about it.

Today, the nine-year-old administration will be gone. President Noynoy will take over as the duly elected, by landslide, President of the Philippines after he takes his oath, not before the Chief Justice of the Philippines (recently named by the outgoing president in what many believe as a midnight appointment) but before a lady associate justice, the lone dissenter in the hurried and controversial appointment of the Chief Justice.

This signals a change in a big way. We are entering a new era of hope. With our collective prayers for grace, this country can get back on its feet again, wobbly at the moment, but will walk again, and heal again.

To mark this change, I am replacing my old header with a new one. So my old header is going. . . going. . . and after today, gone.

Meet my new header: I took a shot of our yellow bells, the first things one sees as he approaches our home. These lovely blossoms are a welcome sight after a tiring day elsewhere. But they, too, will soon be gone.

In the summer, they bloom and brighten up those who pass them by, but the rains have come. Somehow, yellow bells thrive under the heat of the sun, but wilt under the rain. My new header will see them blooming even if they don't.

And God, in His infinite mercy, will shine His blessings upon this nation—so that, like my yellow bells in the next summer, we as a people will bloom once more.

P.S. five days later . . . my sister wrote to ask me whether these flowers are really yellow bells (?) or hibiscus (?) Well, I've always called them yellow bells, my very own yellow bells.