[Note: To access a video-recording of this message, there’s a link at the end of the message. ]*

Hello everyone,

I speak on behalf of Andy’s parents: Eva and myself.

It gives us great joy to see everyone with smiling faces to cherish this special day for Kristina and Andy.

Thank you, Kristina, for being forthcoming with good vibes … making us and our extended families at ease and comfortable despite our nervous excitements. We also love to smile from our hearts like you do in a natural way. We all came to bring our joy and best wishes to you and Andy.

As for Andy, I’d like to say that you have been caring for us more than we could ask for. You have our utmost trust that your good-heartedness will not only remain but will multiply manyfold in your journey with Kristina.

“What you give is what you’re given” or as a similar proverb says, “what goes around comes around”.  With Andy having given us constantly his loving kindness, he now, in turn, is blessed with precious exchanges of marital vows with the love of his life.  For that, we couldn’t thank Kristina enough. And also for Kristina’s mother, Madam Victoria, for giving her blessings to Kristina and Andy, thank you!

We celebrate this marriage to symbolize, as we all know, the union of Kristina and Andy becoming one heart.  But we celebrate also that their union is underpinned with complementary characteristic.  That is, they become better … or they’re at their best …with each other.  As it were, their union as a whole is greater than the ‘sum’ of their separate individualities.

I’m supposed to talk as brief and short as possible and should end here to everyone’s relief.  However, I trust that a little extension is in order as I’m bound by our tradition to impart some words of advice, having gained the status of a grandfather.  It is not that Andy and Kristina need one from me.  In fact, I need more advice from them than they from me.  Therefore, in lieu of our traditional elderly advice, I’m sharing a poem.  A poem, not a song, because I lost my singing voice when I was 2 years old.

For this poem to have some relevance, I will first share how Andy was “liberated” — for lack of better word — from us his parents.

Andy was “liberated” from us well before this wedding.  Andy had just completed his high school when we left Australia for good, leaving him and his sister Nadine on their own.

It was not an easy decision for us to leave Andy and Nadine at relatively young ages.  What helped us decide to leave them was Andy’s strong assertion that we could leave for U.S. while he’d work full-time and continue to study in a uni on a part-time basis.  He and Nadine were used to working as part-time employees while they were studying in high-school.   And so before we left them, they had already been conditioned with the challenges of being self-supporting students.

It has now been about twenty years since Andy was let loose or sent off like a bird to fly with his own free will.  In retrospect, I’m sure he struggled through some challenges and stumbled with some measure of failures as everyone else does, but in the long run, he soared with some decent success though I say so myself.  Therefore, I couldn’t help ask IF we as parents made the right decision to leave Andy on his own.  By the same token, did Andy make the right decision by asserting to be left on his own?

I wish I could definitely say “YES”, Andy and we, his parents, were correct in our mutual and respective decisions since Andy subsequently turned out fortunate enough and now has been blessed with Kristina’s love.  But in my much deeper reflections, I have come to realize that there is more to what parents and their child could do.  Worthy and perfect the decisions or actions of parents and their child might have been, which would certainly help a lot, there is yet the unseen ONE in the equation of life, I believe.

I could hardly articulate further this ‘enlightenment’ or ‘insight’ I have realized in my reflections.  Hence, I selected a poem that magnificently expresses it in my opinion.

Let me read the poem, and pardon my diction and pronunciation … or better yet, enjoy … my awkward declamation.

ON CHILDREN – by Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children. 
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

[And the next and final stanza is what has touched me most]

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

That ends the poem.

We (Andy’s parents) have been blessed as the bow for three wonderful arrows, and Andy, you are one of them.   We dedicate this poem to YOU (Andy) AND Kristina with the hope that you both, in turn, will become a BOW to an ARROW or ARROWS.  May we always remember the ARCHER, even as you as our child and we as your parents tried to do our best.  And may we always remember the LOVE of the ARCHER to both the bow and the arrow.

In conclusion, we say in our Igorot Kankanaey dialect “Magana-ganak kayo!!!” which I’d translate as “May you be a stable bow and be blessed with many arrows … in God’s time”.

Thank you.

*LINK to the video-recording of the delivery of this message  (The recording missed out the first few paragraphs):

*[I am copying below VERBATIM, the message of Tom Killip for Andy (Abeya) and Kristina (Craig) on their wedding in Bali, Indonesia on May 3, 2019.]

Message of TK:

Where we come from in the Cordillera mountain region of Northern Luzon in the Philippines where societies are very tribal in character and social order, and kinship relations are very clannish, weddings are not just the marriage of two individuals. Marriage becomes a wedding of two families and clans. Traditionally this is to ensure the survival of the clan and the tribe. Thus, coming to Bali, in this heaven on earth is not only coming to witness our children being joined in matrimony but also to be woven into that beautiful social tapestry that comprises a family or community of people, in our instance, the families of Andy Killip Abeya and Kristina. Thus had you chose to celebrate in Andy’s hometown of Sagada which is also another heaven on earth you would surely be greeted by elders with wishes and prayers of, “Maganaganak kayo!” which means, “May you have many, many children” or in broader figurative terms, “May your tribe increase!”

Perhaps one day you might also want to consider celebrating your marriage in Sagada which is a custom among our people. In other words you can exchange your marriage vows any place on earth and whenever you come home to your community you can also share your marriage joys with your families, your clans, and the community at large, and they in turn can give you their blessings. That is the custom from where we come from.

Kristina and Andy, we did not come to council you about marriage and married life. Firstly, I would be the last to ever do that because I am forbidden by custom to say so much about weddings and marriages. [Note: Tom was to explain this further in the delivery.]
Secondly, Kristina and Andy have proven themselves ready, mature, and responsible for married life. Their achievements and success in their professions would speak better. On the contrary they should be the ones to share with us the secrets of their success.

In our ethnic community of Sagada and other Igorot communities beyond, there is a saying among bachelors like myself whenever a younger nephew or kin gets married we say, “Osto tapno wada’y mang-isagot ken dakami!” Figuratively, it means in joyful approval, “Go on and continue the task of increasing our tribe from where we stopped!” But of course I am very happy like all the rest that you decided to exchange vows here in Bali which is a dream fulfilled not only for the two of you Kristina and Andy but for everyone of us because it gave us that rare opportunity to visit one of the most beautiful places on earth. I likewise believe that your choice of Bali as a place to exchange your vows is well-deserved for the two of you. You deserve to get married in any of the beautiful spots on earth of your choice. You have worked hard for it. And if you chose Bali as your wedding venue then you would not have been mistaken. And so, if you chose a beautiful place like Bali to be the site of the most significant day in your life then make your married life as beautiful and successful as well. I know you can with God’s grace.

Uncle Tom (Killip)