For the first time in quite a lot of months (or years, heavens, I lost count) I prayed the Holy Rosary.

There was no particular reason why I turned to the beads today, except that I missed the Sunday mass again and wanted to make up for my lack of devotion. I know, I know, I am such a bad Catholic and I may probably rot in hell. I seriously hope not.

It's been a long time since I sat down and prayed the rosary. I remember many years ago when my siblings and I were still kids, my mom would always "disturb" us in the middle of Ghostbusters or whatever it was that was showing on the black-and-white tube for the Rosary session. Do you remember the TV sets from years ago? They were HUGE and looked like big tables. And they came with locks. Talk about parental control. But I digress.

My siblings and I would take turns "leading" the praying of the rosary. We had this small blue prayer books that my aunt, who is incidentally a nun, gave us as our prayer guide. We had a lot of rosaries in the house too, all courtesy of my aunt. We would light a candle and be sitted in front of our small altar (most Filipinos dedicate a small place in the house as an altar), and the prayer leader would be in charge of saying the first part of each prayer. Incidentally, it will also be entirely up to the prayer leader to decide how long the rosary session will take. Like I would slow it down if I was mad at Jonathan and prevent him from catching up with his favorite TV show, or Jeannette will speed it up like she was talking in tongues and we will finish the prayer in under 3 minutes in time to catch the ninja turtles battle the mutant dimwits. When this happens, our mom would usually frown her disapproval and we would slow it down, only to gain back momentum after a while, when it was "safe."

My mom was not entirely goody-goody either. Sometimes, when it was her turn to be the prayer leader, she would actually fall into sleep in the middle of the prayer, and we siblings would snicker and nudge her back to consciousness. "Eh, cansao yo lava plato (I'm tired from washing the dishes)," she would explain away. Sometimes evil little Jonathan would put out the candle if my mom falls asleep in the middle of the prayer, and then wake her up, announcing we were already done with praying and continued without her. "Oh okay," my mom would say. Oh our innocent mother.

I miss the good old days. Now I pray the rosary alone in Bangkok and suddenly I realize years go too fast.