greatest love stories ever told

I am all out of words of how love should be felt and showed or how it should be received or given and who could be the real-parties-in-interest and so let me share with you my collection of the greatest love stories ever told. 

Love that feeds the soul, that which transcends war and time

When Oprah chose Love in the Time of Cholera by Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez for her Book Club, she chose one of the greatest love stories ever written. This exploration of a 50-year affair explores the nature of love in all its forms—passion, lust, infidelity and romance.

Now get ready to read about four more amazing love stories. The first, Oprah says, “is the single greatest love story, in 22 years of doing this show, we’ve ever told on the air.”

When he was 12, Herman Rosenblat and his family were taken from their home in Poland and sent to a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Young Herman was forced to work shoveling bodies into a crematorium. All the while he did not know if he, too, would soon be killed.

One day two years later, Herman walked up to the barbed wire fence and saw a girl on the other side. “She says, ‘What are you doing in there?’” Herman says. “I said to her, ‘Can you give me something to eat?’ And she took an apple out of her jacket.”

The girl fed Herman an apple every day for seven months. Then one day he told her not to come back—he was being moved to another camp. “A tear came down her eyes,” Herman says. “And as I turned around and went back I started to cry, too. I started to cry knowing that I might not see her again.”

Herman was shipped to Czechoslovakia. Just two hours before he was scheduled to die in the gas chambers there, Russian troops liberated the camp and Herman was set free.

Almost 15 years later, Herman was living and working in New York City. A friend set him up on a blind date with a woman named Roma Radzika. Herman says he was immediately drawn to her. When they began talking about their lives, Roma asked Herman where he was during World War II. “I said, ‘In a concentration camp,’” he says. “And then she says, ‘I came to a camp and I met a boy there and I gave him some apples and I sent them over the fence.’

“And suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks. And I said to her, ‘There was a boy? Was he tall?’ And she said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘And one day he told you not to come around anymore because he’s leaving?’ And she says, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘That boy was me.’

Roma and her family had moved from Poland to Germany, using forged papers to hide that they were Jewish. They lived on a farm next to Herman’s camp, posing as Christians to avoid being captured. Roma says when she brought apples and bread for Herman, he used to say, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Well, what can I tell you? I proposed right then and there,” Herman says. “I said, ‘Look, I’ll never let you go anymore. … Now that we’re free we’re going to be together forever.’”

In 1996, on The Oprah Show stage, Herman and Roma gave Oprah a moment she’ll never forget. Herman stood and addressed his wife: “Darling, you’ve fed me when I was hungry. You fed me when we were married. You fed me…until now. But now I’m not hungry anymore, and I’m hungry for your love!”

Since that day their love has continued to grow. Herman and Roma have now been married for nearly 50 years. He says he’s learned a valuable lesson from love. “Every morning when I get up I say, ‘I love you. I love you. I love you,’” Herman says. “And not only [do you say], ‘I love you,’ but you mean it.”

Eleven years after their first Oprah Show appearance, Herman decides to honor his wife again—this time by getting down on bended knee. “Sweetheart, it was 64 years ago when I first saw you,” he says to Roma. “My mother came to me and said to me, ‘I’m sending you an angel.’ And a couple of days later you appeared at the other side of the fence while I was in a concentration camp. Then in 1957, 14 years later, I had a blind date, and it was you. Now our 50th anniversary is coming up. With this ring, my dear, I pronounce my love for you forever. And as this ring has got no end, my love for you doesn’t have any end.”

“You have become the beautiful metaphor for what love can be,” Oprah says. “For endurance, and fate and destiny.”

Wonder love of a mother

20 January 2009

OUR DEAREST FRIENDS…

I am so embarrassed to do this yet, I am humbling myself to ask,please read on..

January 6, 2009 was the worst day of my family’s life,our eldest son, IAN GABRIEL PICART VILLANUEVA, was initially diagnosed to have ACUTE MYELOGENEOUS LEUKEMIA. It is already the 20th of January, and after a 2nd and even a 3rd opinion from different doctors, the diagnosis, sadly is still the same: ACUTE MYELOGENEOUS LEUKEMIA. To aggravate things even, he even has pneumonia. Thus, chemotherapy cannot start just yet. Untreated, he just has 4 months to live…

Treatment plan for Iggy includes at least 3 rounds of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant! To date, we have already moved from 3 hospitals.  Currently we are at National Kidney & Transplant Institute to save on cost.

Though we may belong to a middle income family, the medical expenses that have and are to be incurred is so staggering! The amount needed is about 5 Million.Thinking of how many zeroes the figure has makes me want to give up…But I know I wont and I cant!  I will do anything or everything to save my son to the best that I could. Sad but true, I have nothing. Whatever is left of our meager savings has all been used up. Time is essential.  The bone marrow transplant will be performed 2-3 weeks from now, and I need funds to deposit before any treatment can be done.

I am literally alone. It’s just Iggy & myself in the hospital.  Friends & relatives come to visit but I cannot compel them to do more.  I am a one woman army.  Thank God that I have the laptop and my mind as a weapon.

Iggy, is a well rounded individual who I can say is an achiever.  From grade school to college he is very athletic: red belter in taekwondo, track & field and basketball. An honor student from pre-school to college, a leader in his own ways.

As a mother, it breaks my heart that such potential should go into waste. He is so young. IT IS MY MOST FERVENT PRAYER THAT YOU BECOME PART OF THE CYCLE OF HEALING. IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE.  I HOPE I AM NOT ASKING TOO MUCH. HUMBLY I AM ASKING ANY HELP THAT YOU CAN EXTEND MY FAMILY. WHATEVER MEANS WOULD BE MOST WELCOME. I may not be able to repay your kindness and generosity in this lifetime, but I am confident that God knows.

I am realistic enough to understand how difficult life is today.  I am not asking for total dole-out.  If at all, any of you are willing to loan me. I would forever be grateful. I promise to pay, although little by little, with interest even. Please,This is already a desperate cry for help, I just cant imagine what is to be.

May I also request continued PRAYERS THAT IGGY NOT GIVE UP, HOLD ON AND BE STEADFAST IN HIS WILL TO LIVE.  Likewise, prayers THANKING FATHER GOD FOR THE HEALING.

Thank you very much for taking time out to read this letter.  I know in my heart that you will be able to help me and my family one way or the other. May the Good Lord always bless you and your loved ones.

Respectfully,

VIVIEN ‘BENG’ VILLANUEVA

Mother

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One love for hope, change and freedom

Francis Magalona (October 4, 1964 - March 6, 2009), also known as FrancisM, Master Rapper, and The Man From Manila, was a Filipino rapper, songwriter, producer, actor, director, and photographer. Often hailed as the “King of Pinoy Rap”, he was considered a legend in the Philippine music community. With the success of his earliest albums, he was the first Filipino rapper in the Philippines to cross over to the mainstream. He is also credited for having pioneered the merging of rap with Pinoy rock, becoming a significant influence to artists in that genre as well. He was also a television host on MTV Asia and on noontime variety television show Eat Bulaga! Magalona died seven months after being diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. The Philippine government has announced that Magalona will be posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Merit, for his contributions in promoting patriotism through music.

Filipino hip hop and Nationalistic rap

In 1990, he released the groundbreaking album Yo!, the first commercially released Filipino rap album. Yo! included several popular singles such as “Mga Kababayan” (My Fellow Countrymen), “Gotta Let ‘Cha Know”, “Cold Summer Nights” and “Man From Manila”. With tracks that featured politically conscious and thought-provoking rhymes in both English and Tagalog, Yo! was a big success and helped catapult Filipino hip hop from underground to mainstream status. It also marked the birth of Makabayang (Nationalistic) rap in Filipino hip hop.

In 1992, Francis Magalona released Rap Is FrancisM (1992). With tracks addressing the various cultural and social problems that plagued his country such as drug addiction in “Mga Praning” (Paranoids), political instability in “Halalan” (Elections) as well as the detrimental effects of a colonial mentality in “Tayo’y Mga Pinoy” (We Are Filipinos), the record’s complexity and conscious message quickly earned it its classic status and became the standard by which future albums of the genre were to be compared. This album helped tag Magalona as one of the most politically conscious voices of his generation.

The selfless love

Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with difficulties. She had no income and had to resort to begging for food and supplies. Teresa experienced doubt, loneliness and the temptation to return to the comfort of convent life during these early months. She wrote in her diary:

“Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the cross. Today I learned a good lesson. The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. While looking for a home I walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much they must ache in body and soul, looking for a home, food and health. Then the comfort of Loreto [her former order] came to tempt me. ‘You have only to say the word and all that will be yours again,’ the Tempter kept on saying … Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire to remain and do whatever be your Holy will in my regard. I did not let a single tear come.”