It was simply rich! Rich in warmth, welcoming care, genuine love, unafraid to link arms as we walked. Even the bathroom signs reveal the sublime to read: use the bathroom that best aligns with your true identity.”

Imagine that phrase, a salute to your wholeness, to the fullness of you, a place that nourishes the ideals of the collective humanity: smart, progressive, respectful to the rich abundance of nature, tweeting birds aplenty yet calm and serene; sweet New Zealanders who respect your Malay/Indonesian/Filipino/American self to be included with their families, and trees – very old trees formed and shaped with the winds, embracing the earthly grounds, the expanse more than your distant horizons and your clear eyes could see.

Sight! No blindness! Everyone is seen and heard, where not a single muscle, fiber or bone of my body is feeling ill or out of sorts. My food was simple: mushroom toast, shared with the Delacruz Family whose “manners” are bred like royalty for how polite, sweet, supportive and loving they are to one another. Sweet sweetdays since we landed at the airport, family dinners, city tours of cathedral visit – St. Patrick’s closed due to vandalism and inner door to reveal Christ on the cross.

Nothing is felt like suffering here, yes tired folks on Monday night alighting from the ferry, but a beautiful bay, a cove of replenishing tides of clean waters and spectacular deep orange colored sunsets, yet you don’t sense anger, hatred nor unhappiness.

No wonder The Robertson’s extraordinary gift of 15 exceptional art paintings from Monet, Degas, Gaugin, and more collected by this couple who upon discovering New Zealand split their lives between here and New York.

Awashed, Afloat, Ashore

This extraordinary gift from their hearts must have been intended to match the beautiful generous hearts of Maori people, the first people of New Zealand, a people who at first felt awashed, perhaps lost in the thousand of miles of coastline to explore, where every road you traverse is urban planning that makes sense: a university next to a cathedral – open campus decorated by multi colored flowers, a collection of paintings to memorialize a centenary of women voting rights, the first nation to grant them the right to vote; wintergarden next to a hospital so staff can renew themselves and heal others; a Wyndham multirise hotel next to upscale apartments and at its core, a St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Here is where I don’t ask questions, every place we visited was carefully curated for our needs: from the balcony of our hotel window in the 8th floor, a symbol of infinity to the forever 50th anniversary of Bert and Dollie Delacruz, my handsome soulful husband, Enrique paid tribute by his words, to Bert’s and Dollie’s vision to bring families together for their 50th wedding anniversary. It was described by Dollie as a marriage threatened by separation three times, yet by God’s grace got stronger and more United.

A marriage that Bert humbly described as a marriage in progress, that Dollie said was a series of ups and downs, up, up, up, down, up, up, down, and now up, up and up to reveal a beautiful clan of two children, several grandchildren who carry themselves as if ‘ambassadors of goodwill’ with clear life goals.

For Miguel, a teacher of 75 students in 3 classes and a school teacher/leader, he has goals of completing a doctorate in philosophy in Columbia. Enrique, my husband, instantly mentored Miguel of how to avail of entering through the front door of higher education, and keep himself afloat; while the younger Steven has entered the door of Cal State Long Beach, availing himself of a semester of learning this coming fall 2024, whose photographic skills, and whose eyes are his primary assets and whose heart is so open to see beauty in anything and everything.

I love how he made his grandmother Dollie so pretty and soulfully reflective in a black and white image he snapped inside the wintergarden.

Even Kobe, a new infant, is a gift to the family as now the Delacruz brothers are great great grand uncles. True to my husband’s witty self, he said, “If Kobe is my great great grandson, then, I must be great. ” We laughed – his sense of self fully wholesome.

A reunion with more family members, EJ, John, Ysabel, Sophie, Sasha at a thriving farm where dogs are warmly cuddled, where fejoia trees are bearing sweet fruits, where chickens are raised giving green eggs, black eggs, orange eggs, yellow eggs. A rooster was cooked to perfection of tinola, a ginger broth with four sayote squash and malunggay leaves, welcomed our hungry tummies.

An Osaki massage chair welcomed us all, where 30 minutes removed kinks and knots and we kept mentioning @Body and Soul Accupunture’s @Antonio Whiteley and his triad of acupuncture, cupping and massage services to give us an Afloat, infant-like, relaxed feeling of no body pain, with no pills and no added substances, just healing hands of massage and precise needles and lotion.

Indeed the Art Gallery’s welcoming sign to heal and to recover, where a daily encounter with New Zealanders bring out their sweetness and care.

Thank you for gifting us your beautiful souls, your sweet soulful serenity revealing your Maori true gentleness – an intersection of land and and water, a renewing inside by the fresh, unpolluted waters, where verdant hills and open landscapes keep us Ashore, grounded to Mother Earth’s and soft sounding, calm hundreds of birds, where roads are not lighted in the suburbs to respect the nocturnal kiwis, where you find no street litter, only dried leaves where trees are nurtured in the shoulders of the motorways – not in entirety but enough to signal, trees and shrubs and bushes are respected here as all kinds of birds.

I did not see any unhoused men or women in the streets, just one Awashed man in his hospital gown, seem floating and lost in the streets. I said a prayer that he may find his moorings soon, towards the direction of God within him.

I felt comfortable talking to graduates, one finished her degree in nutrition and will be pursuing her Master’s in Dietetics. I introduced myself, a graduate of food technology and law, and my sweet niece, Suzette, who has a nursing degree and worked in public policy in Australia Dept of Public Health, and a World Health Organization – trained fellow and now works at a private hospital.

I talked to another graduate of a Master’s information technology in University of Auckland and introduced my brother in law, CJ who warmly shared his two engineering degrees and the student just shared that she too was an electronics engineering degree. CJ ended it with hope:”That she will be part of the future of transformation, from analog, to digital, to AI and to the space.” She smiled and said, “I started a job of being a project manager to now project engineer.”

We both smiled and walked a few more steps, 15,000 steps for the entire day, towards the stairs of art murals to memorialize women’s right to vote in 1893, New Zealand’s gift to the world.

Our city tour was capped by a ferry ride to Devenport where a few minutes ride took off our fatigue, making us clean slates to receive the beauty of our collective humanity.

The glorious day of sunrise, beach walk, sunset, and the beauty of family togetherness with no drama while driving to two national parks and city tours yesterday was a very generous gift of generosity of the Delacruz and Regalo family’s spirit to us, while visiting them in New Zealand.

Next post is on two national parks we visited yesterday, a true communion of souls with God’s creation and beauty! Thy kingdom come and thy will be done! We love you, Lord and each other.

A surprise to us all, my husband said, usually a man of few words, after appreciating Bert’s vision of bringing family together, declared with sincerity, “I love you all’.” His smiles say it all, as mine!

Today is the 50th renewal of marital bliss and transcended struggles of differences, United in a common endeavor of taking care of the farm, the church family, the birth family and the grandchildren. Congratulations Bert and Dollie Dela Cruz!