A Decade and Eight

That's what was written on the invitation to my second cousin Joleena's debut which I attended last night. It's been a really long time since I last attended a debut which is not all that surprising given that I am nowhere near being 18 years old. :) The last one of these events I went to was for the daughter of my friend and I had special participation because my friend asked me to sing "Overjoyed" by Stevie Wonder as an intermission. This time around, I had a special role again. A couple of them actually.

Weeks back, I was asked if I could be part of the 18 roses ceremony. Naturally, I said yes. Then about a week before, her mom Ate Aileen (I call her Ate because she's closer to my age than my mom's, even if she and my mom are cousins) texted me asking if I could lead the opening prayer. You don't say no to requests like these so I didn't, but I wasn't sure what to say. Another friend gave me some ideas and I looked up some sample prayers online LOL but it wasn't really until about three hours before the party that I finished composing my own prayer. Talk about cramming. :)

My mom also had a special role that night as she was asked to part of the 18 treasures, as was my grand aunt Manang Neneng who was also there. Her daughter Cha (who is actually a lot younger than me so I don't call her tita LOL) was also part of the 18 candles. I guess you could say that the evening was sort of a family reunion too since I got to see several relatives on my mom's side whom I hadn't seen in a while.

Speaking of reunions, just the weekend before, I attended the birthday of Tito Erwin, my uncle on my dad's side of the family. It was great seeing most of my family under good circumstances, especially after Tito Roy and my cousin Doyle both passed away recently. Tito Erwin is a bit of a musician and he plays with a band so he asked his band to join the party and play live music all afternoon. I guess I should have expected this but I got asked to sing a song. My uncle asked me to sing either Spandau Ballet's Gold or U2's With or Without You. Obviously, the choice was easy given that I had performed With or Without You on countless gigs back in the day.