I. Will. Miss. You. All.

Enough. Said.

-Jezze.  

PS. Word Count:

*Since a picture is worth a thousand words… *

2 pictures = 2000 

i will miss you all = 5 

enough said = 2

jezze = 1

TOTAL: 2008.    

In our world today, it doesn’t matter what walk of life you come from, we all face tedious jobs, mind-numbing assignments and exhausting projects. And to add to that, each have their own ticking time bombs waiting to blow up in your face any minute. These bombs clog and block our well-planned weekend and instead of being able to visit the local mall, we end up visiting the local bookstore to buy paper, glue sticks and glitters for our project. After that field trip to the bookstore, we are detained in our rooms, typing, editing, solving till the wee hours of the morning. And once we’re done, we end up wondering, “How do other people end up having better creations than mine without even having to break a sweat?

I believe, that answer to that question that they have heart. And no, I’m not saying that we are ice queens or kings, rather the main difference would be that they treat their tasks as gold while we look at ours as coal. They treat their works as their lovers while we look at ours as our masters.

There have been many times in my past when I have discovered this love, though I always end up letting it slip from my memory and my heart every single time. As I write this paper, I feel that it is calling back to me once more; I feel that love once again trying to set me free.

When I was a still young boy in high school, I was recruited by my then classmate and friend to join the high school Judo team. At first I was a little apprehensive since Judo was a rough and tough sport and I did not want to hurt my fragile body but in the end, with an eager heart and an agitated body, I made my way to the Dojo. I was a little shocked at first with the bone-crushing and backbreaking drills and exercises but I just told myself to endure these pains and hardships and that all these would pass. But I was wrong, dead wrong. Training became harder and harder but I also felt that someway somehow little by little I was beginning to adapt. My body was becoming stronger but my heart was becoming weaker. I was losing the interest that I possessed at first and slowly I was distancing myself away from the sport. I trained and stayed not because I wanted to, I hanged on to be able to save face and not be called a ‘wuss’ by my team mates. But even though I stayed, my game was slowly starting to decline; it did not even reach a high level but because of my lack of love for the game, I was becoming worse and worse at it. All these happened when I was in third year.

Summer came and we had summer training which I rarely attended due to many different reasons. They ranged from a family dinner to a dentist appointment to an injured back mid-section to a review class. Some of which were true and some invented to be able to escape the claws of training. Summer went by and I only attended about two or three our of almost thirty training sessions.

 Fourth year arrived and I must admit that I missed training. I missed the intoxicating smell of the mats and I longed for the feel of the rough and bumpy feel of our ‘gi’. I missed being thrown down on the floor with a thud and throwing other people around as well. I counted down the days till training day came. Months turned into weeks and weeks into days. Finally, the day of reckoning has come! The moment I stepped onto the mats and gave my respects to Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, and my coaches, I wanted to blow up and explode with all the emotions that filled me. I felt happy, sad, excited, scared, anguished for not training in the summer and most important of all I felt the love. I felt the love that I lost a year ago and I felt the sport calling back to me once more.

With that love present in my heart, training for me became a breeze. It did not become easy on my body, in fact it got a lot more intense than before, but I just did not get easily bothered with the stinging pain. I looked forward to the next training session even if my body has not yet fully recuperated from the beating I took the night before. I became better and when the day of a big tournament came, I was not nervous at all. I trusted in myself and believed that I had enough skills that would enable me to perform and be the very best that I could be. When the dust settled down, I was the champion for my weight class and I give most of the credit to my love of the sport.

Love for Judo made me realize that to be able to achieve excellence, not only in sports but in almost anything, one must be able to do it with love and passion. Without that love, you would only feel burdened by the task at hand and it would reflect on your performance. A life without that love for living could be compared to a pen without ink, a rose without its scent, a sky without its stars, a beach without its sand, and to a person without a soul.

If a person loves to do one thing, he or she will not feel the negative effects of that action. Instead, only the positive effects become evident and these would be the only things that person would feel. There might even come a time when loving something so much removes the do in doing.

I have always hated it when my mother would say that line of hers. For me, it is not really appropriate because there is always that other saying of, “There’s always tomorrow.” I must admit, I can get really lazy sometimes. That is why I liked that saying a whole lot better than my mom’s. (However, I learned the hard way… JUST KIDDING, MA’AM) However, it was only when something extreme happened did I truly understand how appropriate that line of my mom really is. It was only until my father passed away.

When I was in the fourth grade, I kept delaying most of the things I did, especially my school work. But sadly, among those things I delayed was spending time with my father.

It was this time that my father suffered a stroke. He suddenly collapsed while working out and hit his chest on the edge of a chair which disabled his breathing. My uncle, along with the trainers, rushed him to the hospital. Fortunately, the hospital was close by because my father was already turning blue due to the lack of air. My uncle called my mom once they got to the hospital and explained what happened. He said that the doctors mentioned that he was officially dead for six minutes but luckily, they were able to revive him. We came as quickly as possible as soon as my mom put down the phone but unfortunately, even with the doctor’s best efforts, our father had slipped into a comma.

After two days, my father woke up from the comma. We thought all was well at that point but due to the gravity of the incident, we learned that he was paralyzed. The doctors said that this was curable but it would take a long time for a full recovery. Because of the long time table given by the doctors, our mother turned our guest room into a “hospital room,” buying all sorts of equipment and even hiring a nurse so that we could have our father rest in our house instead. Even though it was very very expensive, our mom chose to do this so that it would not be hard for us to spend time with our father. All we needed to do was go down a flight of stairs and we would see him already. However, even with the easy accessibility, I did not spend a lot of time in that room because at the back of my mind I always thought that, “I could spend time with him tomorrow, I have ‘stuff’ to do today.” The next day would come and I would think the exact same thing again, then the next day, then the day after that, and so on. Now don’t get me wrong, this does not mean that I did not see my father at all. What I mean by all of this is just that I could have spent more time with him… but I didn’t because I always thought that “there is always tomorrow.” I kept thinking this until two years passed by, until that tomorrow I always said there would be never arrived.

You see, two years my father spent in the comfort of our homes. Two years did God give us to spend more time with him. However, after seeming to be on his way to a full recovery, another stroke occurred that took him away from us. It was such a difficult time for our whole family. We could not believe what happened. We all thought that everything was going to be alright because our father was already starting to move his hands and feet when that happened. We all broke down in tears, especially me.

I was the most affected by this, after my mom of course, because I was the one who stayed in my father’s room the night before he died. My mom woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that I had to go back upstairs because they were taking my dad to the hospital. She told me to say goodbye to him. But because I was still sleepy and because I thought, there was always tomorrow, I did not do it. So you could imagine why I felt so bad after this. I was given two years to spend more time with my father but I did not take advantage of it. I was given a chance to say my goodbye, but I did not take it. And to this day, it still hurts to think of how my laziness got me to waste these golden opportunities. How I should have did something while I had the chance, and not waited until that chance went away. On how I should have not done it tomorrow since I could have done it today.

                 There is this one special person in my life who has shown me what loving truly is, and he did this in the very way that a real loving father would. Yes, he is none other than my dad. For me, my dad is the greatest person in the world. Like most dads he was always there when I was sick, especially the time I was confined to the hospital where he stayed up all night taking care me. He was there when I needed someone to talk to about my love life and my problems with school, he was there when I needed help on projects and relationships and he was there when I needed protection and security from a fight or even a heartbreak. Basically my dad was always there for me, he always gave me the feeling that he would always have my back and he would catch me if ever I fell down. He had this magic with him that always made me feel that whatever wrong I do, I can always fix it. You may say that my dad is just like every other dad, doing what they should be doing; but you are dead wrong! There is something about my dad that separates him from all the other good dads you can find, and when I say this I say it with all the love that he deserves in return.

                During my adolescence, I would say that I wasn’t the most obedient child you could find, and neither was I the most loving. During those days I really didn’t want to listen to what my dad had to say, for I always knew that he would always contradict to whatever I wanted. When I wanted to go out with friends he would always argue his belief that it’s more fun to stay at home than to go out and spend more money on pointless whims. He was a very persistent man(guessing that it came from his being a Chinese businessman) and I only knew one way to shut him out, and that was through fighting fire with fire. We usually fought with each other by shouting, screaming and creating the worst father and son duet in history. I being the naughty kid that I was always contradicted what he had to say. When I was younger he would always say, “you have to eat your vegetables.(with a Chinese twang)”, and I on the other hand would get a bag of chips and start devouring it in front of him. Everyday I would just lock my door so that every time he wanted to talk to me, he would be forced to leave his message the same way he would leave it in an answering machine. However, one of those days, it hit me that maybe I had shutout my dad for too long, that the love he had for me would diminished with time. Eventually time went by that way, and on a very unfortunate turn off events my dad suffered from an emotional depression with the collapse of the Philippine economy. During those times I would see my dad lying down on his bed, in the most helpless state that I have ever seen him, where he didn’t talk at all and he had this very disgusting smell of old people. The man that I looked up to as my childhood hero lay in bed looking as though he were a brain dead patient in the last days of his life. He couldn’t even get up to watch his favorite Korean telenovela show, he couldn’t even go to the kitchen and eat his favorite chocolate bar and worst of all, even though he was already lying in bed, he couldn’t even sleep and dream those painful nights away. Seeing him in that helpless state hurt and destroyed me completely, I felt as though god has struck his fist on me as a punishment for all those times that I have neglected my father.  Therefore, one of those days I went up to my dad and tried my best to comfort him. I expected him to tell me what he wanted so that I could get it for him, but instead he told me that he just wanted to talk to me. He told me how much he loved me and that he is sorry for all those times he argued with me and yelled at me, he also said that he was sorry if things don’t work out well for him. This statement somewhat shattered the big wall that separated my dad and me for so long. I burst into tears because I have felt that my father had no reason to be sorry for anything, and yet he was the one saying sorry. Before that incident I thought that my dad had given me a great deal of love already, but at that moment I saw that he had already been giving his everything to me, and on my part what have I done to deserve his love? . . . Nothing but shut him out of my life.

                Now, in the present I can say that I have matured a lot and am trying to make up for all the times that I wasn’t there for my father. My father changed me by molding me into a better man with the unresting love he had been bestowing upon me every single day of his life. I dream of one day becoming like my father, of course without the belly and the very naggy attitude of traditional Chinese men. I dream of loving like my father. I want to love so much that nothing could ever stop that love. I want to share with others what I felt through my father, and that is none other than true and pure love. A love that just keeps on giving and a love that never asks anything in return. Through this experience I had clearly seen what absolute love truly meant to me. It is not the puppy love that we feel for crushes and nor is it the love we have for the important and valuable things we like, but rather it is the love that knows no bound, the love that is patient and the love that lasts forever.

     Have you…

…Ever been a victim?

…Ever wanted revenge?

       Despair no longer! No need to shed a tear! This article is here.

AHA! I assume that you, reader, by responding to the query above, have been hurt by another individual sometime in the past – or are being hurt by someone as we speak, or rather, as you are reading this.

In this world, there are but 3 kinds of people: those who kill, those who are killed, and those who watch as the other two go about their grim business. What does this tell us? That one way or another everyone – all the 6,606,971,659 people in the world – has been, is, or will be an accessory to some kind of murder. Maybe not murder in its most concrete sense, but the murder of something abstract – a dream, a relationship, even a future.

Well reader, it must be made known to you that I admit to being – in at least one point of my life – all three of those kinds of people. However, I wish to impart to you but one story, showing but one facet of this multi-paradigmed circumstance – the one that involves the most pain. 

It was around 12 years ago. I was in first grade, a time when school ended at 2:15pm, when 20 bucks meant as much as a 1000, and when food was, to the eyes of 6-year-old girls, very expensive. Indeed, it was a period when the food that one was able to purchase was devoured and wolfed down, not by the purchaser but by surrounding scavengers hiding behind little, adorable faces. It was then that one faithful – rather, unfortunate – day I was able to, with the little money I had, purchase a small order of sour cream flavored fries. Oh, what joy it was to hold that small, warm pack in my hands! Oh, how the happy feeling swelled within me as I scurried back to the concrete pavement outside my classroom.

But woe! My glee was to be short-lived, for I would never make it safely back to my classroom.

On my way, fries in hand, I met my friends. They ran up to me asking to have a share in the bounty I carried. I willingly agreed. These girls were, after all, my friends. And so, after such a philanthropic display, I carried on. But words traveled faster than my two little feet. Soon enough, more and more little girls approached me – classmates whom I hardly ever talked to, begging, with their hungry eyes, to have some of my fries. Oh, how the feelings of joy left me as confusion started to set in. The palm that held the precious bundle became sweaty as I troubled about keeping the last few pieces to myself or giving them away. 

“The last few pieces of the fries I had bought with MY money ought to be eaten by no one else but ME.” It was then that I decided to refuse their advances. Many left with shoulders slumped in defeat. But, there was this one girl, twice my size, who refused to take “no” for an answer.

In this article, I will call her Lyn.

So, as I walked away, Lyn summoned all her strength – heavy as she was – to run after me. She pushed me from behind – making me fall, face first, to the cold, rough, and hard concrete pavement.

I could not stand up, could not move. The pain I felt was tremendous. It pierced through my little knees, my thin arms, and my face.  There I cried, with the last of my sour cream fries scattered around me, until my teacher ran up to carry me to the clinic. 

I suffered severe wounds in my extremities. The wounds, after clotting, looked like big dark brown maps of continents in my skin. My face, thankfully, was not disfigured. However, the impact of the blow brought forth scratches in my cheeks and caused my first permanent tooth to fracture. Yes, reader, I was devastated. There and then, I had lost a significant amount of blood, a part of myself, and my innocence. For the first time, I wanted revenge.

For weeks, I carried with me the scars in my limbs. For months, I brought with me the trauma of such an event. For years, I took with me a bitter remnant of that cursed day. I wanted to make that monster of a girl pay for all that I had suffered.

You, reader, surely can relate to being victimized. In truth, my experience may not be as grave as what you have gone through. However, I hope you understand that, although the magnitude of such events may vary, it all boils down to the same thing. What do we victims want? Revenge. What and who can’t we ever forget? The incident. The perpetrator. But, you see, I have realized that nurturing such a dark seed in one’s heart is not the answer.

After the incident, I had to make various trips to the dentist – something I feared. I had to have my tooth reconstructed. Come Christmas time, Lyn’s mother gave me a present hoping that it might make up for the atrocity Lyn had committed.

It did not make it all right. It did not undo what Lyn had done.

Though I wanted revenge, I could not make myself inflict to Lyn the pain I had felt. I could not bring myself, though countless opportunities presented themselves, to push Lyn down the stony pavement. I could not. I would not. 

Over the years, I realized one important thing. And this, reader, I want to impart to you with the hopes that the you may find peace and resolution, that you may let go of the bitterness you have felt, are feeling, and may feel, as I once had.

ONE MUST LEARN TO LET GO. Cliché? Perhaps. I understand that such an act is tedious to follow through, especially if you are the victim. 

All the brooding and scheming for revenge is tantamount to nothing. It will leave you empty and thirsty. It will drill a hole into you, reader – a void that can never be filled, lest you fulfill your desire for retribution. But what will that lead to? It cannot and will not undo what has happened to you. It cannot and will not give you redemption. In fact, you will have achieved nothing but damnation.

Let Go. Picture yourself, reader, holding onto a knife, hands bleeding. The pain stinging and increasing as each moment passes. That is you, holding on to wanting vengeance, afraid that, if you let go, there will be nothing for you but the empty, dark abyss below. What you fail to see, however, is that your toes are, in reality, but an inch away from the surface – that by letting go, you gain stability and end your suffering. 

I carried my hatred towards Lyn until fourth grade. I never spoke to her, never said hello. Until, I realized: What good will it do? What could I gain? Nothing. It was then that I, once and for all, decided to free myself and uproot the tree of hate that grew in my heart. What good did that do me? It gave me peace.

Still, I did not say hi to Lyn. I would never do that. But, in my heart, I had let go. I felt peace. That, reader, is what I wish for you to feel, too. 

You need not pretend to be in good terms with those who have wronged you. You need not smile when they pass you by. You let go, not for them, but for yourself – that you may have peace of mind, that you may be free. Those who have wronged us may forget what they have done. After all, it is the wronged who carry the burden of memory. So, I say this and this alone: Let go not because the one who has hurt you merits forgiveness. Let go because you – yes, YOU, reader – deserve peace.

I hope that you, reader, while reading this article, have come to a realization, similar to what I have arrived at while living it.

us·er (yōō’zər)

I just simply hate it when people call me a user with the second definition in mind. Well, I wouldn’t want anyone to call me user using the third definition but the second definition just makes my blood boil. There have been times that I myself felt that I was a user but these happened on rare occasions only and were not that intentional ‘user’ moments. I guess that because of these instances, some people might have that that I was indeed a user.

One example would be the fact that I used to always go to my friends house uninvited. He just lived nearby our school back then and when we had free time I would always tell him that we should go to his house to relax, chill and play computer games. We used to stay there many times and most of the time it was because of my instigation, and to think that I used to do this way back before we were even super close. I later on felt that I was indeed in a way using him and our friendship for his house so I stopped myself from ever doing that again.

Another example would be that I used to always ask what our homework is from my classmates. I know that this isn’t an act of ‘user-ness’ but let me just say that I only talk to these classmates when I’m asking homework from them. I don’t even utter a single word to them in school but when I get home and I’m very desperate for homework, I message them through ym or text only to ask what our homeworks are for that day. There even reached a point in time when I did not even bother to copy our assignments knowing that I had ‘friends’ to depend on. In the end though, my conscience got the better of me and I tried stopping this habit though there are still some times when I end up doing it all over again.

I guess that these two examples were already enough for people to call me as a user back then. No one has ever told me directly but there have been times when I’ve heard people talk about me being a user. There were also times that a close friend of mine would tell me that some people are talking about me being too much of a user. Because of these incidents, which deeply enraged me, I decided that it was time to do something about this things. No, I did not retaliate to those who were talking about me; instead, i focused all my efforts into changing my bad habit. In the end, the teasing died down.

I’m quite glad that even up to now people have stopped from referring to me as such and that I have controlled myself from turning into one again. Every time that I feel that I’m slowly being a user, this stranger feeling overwhelms me and tells me to stop and that may have been the difference that has helped overcome being a user.

Oh I forgot to mention that membership is totally free! just click on I AM A BLABBER MOUTH and your in! As easy as that. Oh and you can add your own, just type “dirty little secrets” and you can start your own column of secrets.

*every secret article is for the public

The word “blabber mouth” is the definition of a person who just cant shut up. He loves to spill secrets of others. For me, it is the word that I really dont want to be associated with. It stands for me a word that would be equal to an unworthy friend. Because the whole point of knowing a secret is the trust that a person gives you. It is one of the perks of being close to a friend. It also shows that “you are in” in that crowd. It is the biggest show of trust that person could ever give you. And being a blabber mouth does destroy that trust in you. It just shows that you just dont value that trust or better yet, you dont deserve that trust. And no matter how good your other characteristics are as a friend, it would just render useless if you are a blabber mouth.

During my second year in high school, there was this one time when my friend told the 3 of us her secret. It was a really awkward secret and awkward knowing it but despite that fact we all still got along. And then, one she just found out that her secret has been spread to the whole class. She was really shocked, and being one of the people who knew her secret I was also a suspect for her. I was really sad because I didnt tell anyone the secret, but she did call me a blabber mouth-and it hurts so bad. Because the fact that it was a branding name that would destroy your reputation and your friendship. But in the end she found out that it was another girl who told her secret to everyone. The bottomline is that I dont want to be associated with this word because from experience I know how much it hurts and how much damage that word carries with it.

But fortunately, you can avoid being a blabber mouth in three easy steps. First, dish out a secret of your own to your friend, so that you’ll both be inclined to keep quiet if you dont want your secret to be broadcasted. Second, in on the right ear and out on the left. That way you wouldnt be inclined to spill the secret, and you’ll just have to be reminded over and over. Its because there are some things better left unsaid or forgotten. It works better than spilling it to everyone. Third, examine yourself- ask yourself, “can I keep this secret?” before asking to be told about it. But the bottom line is know when to shut up. that is the best solution in keeping a secret.

What gives us the notion to call a male person gay? Is it when they adore the Fab 5? And no, not in the “just a fan of the show” basis, if you catch my drift. Is it when we see someone enjoying themselves TOO MUCH in the locker rooms? Or someone looking forward for P.E but not so much for the physical part, but more of the changing of clothes part. Is it when we hear someone speak in a different language with words like badesh or chokla? Or a guy calling another guy “sister”? Is it when we see someone wearing clothes that don’t exactly fit males? Like extremely tight leather jeans or stuff that don’t really cover the male genitals (Richard Simmons). Or maybe it is when someone is part of the Filipino Department. (Sorry, cannot help myself to put that one in. No offense to anyone part of it.) There are many more notions that can be mentioned, some may be true, some may be false. However, one thing is for sure, I definitely do not want to be called gay.

There are a few reasons why I do not want this word to be associated with me. The biggest being I am conscious about my reputation. Just like most of us, I care about what other people think of me. That is why I do not want them to think I am something that I am not. And I am definitely not gay. I just cannot picture myself having gas fights while drinking orange mocha frappuccinos or having another male as my ice skating partner. Just the thought of these things already creep me out. Don’t get me wrong though, I have friends that are gay and I respect their choice of lifestyle and all. However, when someone calls me this, it just lowers my self esteem. I mean, males are pictured to be strong and masculine and I like being referenced to that. But being called gay just erases this perception.

Now it might seem that I am over reacting and acting like a homophobe. But please understand the reason why I am like this with regards to this word is because I was called gay before. Back when I was in the sixth grade, my father passed away. I was not able to experience the bonding a boy should get with his father as much as the other kids. So instead, I grew up spending a lot of time with my mom and two sisters which made me a little feminine. Because of this, people in school started calling me gay and a momma’s boy, which back in grade school was a very big insult to hear. It also did not help that my English teacher called me gay. I only found out a year later she was referring to the word’s actual meaning of being extremely happy… which I cannot contest. Eventually though, the people calling me gay ceased to do so. I have to thank God for the wonders of puberty as those people started maturing and realized how low name calling actually was. That and the fact that I started outgrowing everyone else also helped of course.

Another reason why people stopped calling me gay was because I just stopped paying attention to their insults. I realized that not letting the insults of this word affect you is a good way of stopping it because when people tease someone else, it is for the satisfaction they get when they hit a nerve of the other person. However if they do not succeed in doing so, they just make fools out of themselves instead. So in the end, the way for me to avoid being associated with this word ever again is just to believe in myself. I know that I am not gay. So when people insult me with this word again, I should not let this bring me down because I know it is not true.

I have lived a happy and pleasant life. In my one hundred three years of age, I would say that I have had my equal shares of accomplishments and misfortunes; and that even though things were that way, I am so happy that everything still turned out quite the way I wanted things to be. I would like to thank all the people that had made my stay on earth, more than I could have ever imagined. I would like to thank first and for most, the love of my life, my wife, who has been with me for the past seventy-five years, and had never complained about a single thing. Even though, I know that I have not given to her everything that she wanted, she stuck with me and I know she did because she loved me with all her heart. To her, I am forever indebted and I would like her to know that wherever I would be going, she can count on it, that I would be waiting for her. Secondly I would like to thank my two lovely children for giving me the hardest times and the most enjoyable moments of my life. It would kill me if life won’t turn out fine for them since I would regret not being there when they would need me the most. My loving children never fear life for life is just the start of something beautiful and amazing. Lastly to all my loving friends and relatives I hope I would always be a part of your lives. I hope that somewhere in your minds you will always remember me and the life I have lived. To all of you I am really thankful.

On the other hand, before I go on to the afterlife, I would like to ask upon you people one last important thing. No, I would not ask of you to burn all my material belongings or even to kill someone for me. All I ask of you, my loved ones, is to keep the name of Alderdich Chaucer intact. In all my years of living never had I been called a “Tag-Along” and I do not intend to leave my legacy, with a branding of such word. Why you might ask that I have taken all this time just to write a letter saying that I do not want to be associated with the word “Tag-Along”? It is because of my colossal pride. I hangout with my friends and colleagues, but never in my life have I given in to their wanting for the sole purpose of acceptance. I do not give in to bad influences of vices and wrong doings, so that people would find me cool and in fashion. I do not stick with people just to attain fame and the limelight. In other words, I keep my honor intact and I let my character and personality define me. People might use the word to brand me because in my line of business, I usually associate myself with people who are far more successful than I am. I usually look like I am sucking up to people of higher stature just to attain their trust and approval. However, that isn’t the case. I do what I do because I am hungry for knowledge and improvement. I am hungry for what these people can offer to me. I associate myself with people of such stature not because I want to be considered within their level, but because I want to learn how I can raise and improve myself to that level of success and at the same time bring along everyone important to me to a better life.

So what can you do for me my loved ones? I do not ask of much but just to let everyone you meet know the life that was lived by Alderdich Chaucer. Even in my afterlife it would be a great honor, how I can still be a friend to those who doubts my persona. My dear beloveds I hope you can grant me this one last wish. I do not expect of you to a one hundred percent success rate, for I believe that it is still up to the hearts of men, whether or not they want to know the man that is Alderdich Chaucer; but to you people who already know me, thank you very much and good bye. . .

A loving friend, a loving son, a loving father and a loving husband,
Alderdich Chaucer