Love is in Us.

"Love is in us. It is deeply embedded in the brain. Our challenge is to understand each other."

The above words came from an introductory video of this blog post. Click here to watch.

I can testify that they are true words indeed after experiencing a long lasting 30 year marriage with my first love who sadly died of cancer by age 50. She married me when she was 20 and that was the beginning of my familylane stories. About 3 years after her passing, I find myself in love again and shared the joy with the world the same way I have shared other valuable truths to the world in this spiritual blog. Click here to read.


So how did the new relationship begin?

Valentines Day Feb 2015


A biking event with friends co-incidentally involving 7 men and one woman on Valentine's day tickled my creative juices to create this video below :


But that wasn't the day when I met my sweetheart to be. It probably reminded me of the times when I had my Valentine with me on this special day as per an old video :


We met on social media about mid year in 2015. Guess it is not surprising since this is the year when I added another feather in my cap for my life's achievement recorded in the media here.

Found out in facebook that she is known as Staff Nurse Jannah, meaning 'Heavenly'. She is attached to a local hospital in Kuala Lumpur, coincidentally where two of my daughters are born and where my father had passed away. She is of a mixed ancestry known as Sino-Kadazan from Sabah. Her nick name is 'Didi' and I told her she can call me 'Boynie' that is still being used fondly by childhood friends of mine and my siblings today including their spouses! There is a popular Hakka song, the dialect of my ancestry, about how cute Sino-Kadazans are that can be watched and listened to on YouTube that has English lyrics.


What attracted me to this girl? 
It is noteworthy to mention that when I mention to her that she is 'petite', she would insist she is not! Well she is really about the same height and size as my first love, maybe a little taller is all, but maybe I simply like cute petite sized women. The YouTube video mentioned above probably best expresses how I was overwhelmed!

Found out very quickly also that she is a football fan of Liverpool club...

... and quite fit or athletic herself too!

Seems like we have watched the same movies with the same heroes...

... and enjoy the same simple meals wherever we go on a date.


How can you tell if you are truly in love with a girl?


When you start following her to events to take lots of photos and create a video for her?


How can you tell her that you love her?

By singing to her a classic love song?

Love Malaysian style - Gitaran Jiwa from Dad the KL City Kid on Vimeo.

How can you tell that she loves you too and that it's timely to propose to her?

When she surprises you with a lovely cake on your birthday...

... and gives you a card filled with love expressions?

She came as a surprise with a 'love at first sight' experience just like my first love. I proposed to her within a short time period just as I did with my first love and almost in the same unorthodox way without a real proposal or a ring ! We may likely get married by this year end, if there are no objections when we publicly announce our intention to marry as required in a civil marriage by law. She would be 24 years of age, a little older than the bride of my first marriage with the difference that I would have a larger chronological time gap of 33 years compared to 4 years as when I was first married. Notice that I specifically defined the time measurement as chronological as opposed to other terms of measurement such as psychological, physiological or even spiritual! Being a spiritual man myself, I adopt the philosophy in my religion that time is measured or is regarded important only by Man on earth while God's time standard is infinite hence with values different from Man. So much for my personal beliefs which is obvious if one were to scan through my volumes of personal journals to date to come across a post such as this one.

Continued in the next post.


Love Hurts

Love hurts maybe for a woman more than a man. Why do I say so? Well women are definitely the more emotional type and do I say so because I see them struggle with hormonal swing and drift from one mood to the another?

Man on the other hand, and I'm talking about the stereo type men who leads the family, do the "Man's" job, is where the buck stops to take all responsibilities etc, becomes the seemingly less emotional type, some times cold to make decisive actions and seemingly 'cold as ice' as I was accused of when I was a voluntary missionary of 21 years of age by some other women I was trying to avoid by following the advice of President Kimball, the head of our Church at that time who had taught to 'lock your heart' and keep the key at home while called on a mission. It served me well to experience an ultimate joy of service and built deep spiritual roots personally to climb mountains of my life as shared here.

I returned on my mission to find a wonderful and talented woman to be my wife who was better schooled than me in our Church as she joined as a young woman while I became a convert only when I was turning 21. We started a true love story that ended with her passing but 'familylane' stories continue. Yes love hurts, not just in separation by death but some times due to separation caused by other reasons such as physical, mental and spiritual divisions. This goes back to my body mind spirit philosophy where everyone defers in intensity of each component of ourselves and how they work together to create each person to have his or her own unique traits or personality. As the saying goes, "Everyone is Different" and naturally so. Irreconcilable differences can cause more hurts in breakups and divorces which create even greater and longer hurts.

We therefore must remember the introductory lines of the last post, "Love is in us. It is deeply embedded in the brain. Our challenge is to understand each other." Using a Body Mind Spirit approach, it might cover the need to forgive one another, to learn about how another can be different from us and can still be loved and believe that a loving Heavenly Father is there to help us understand him and his plan on this earth for all of us to be happy together.

I remember two quotations about relationships that my wife and I would sometimes joke about. It is about whether which is true, 'The heart grows fonder when physically apart' or 'Out of sight out of mind'? In today's modern world, I've felt that a third option has been created where both may be physically apart yet may not be out of sight with each other with the use of online video chats and social media tools like facebook etc to keep our minds connected! I think this question arose in the past and even today in this new relationship of 'Didi and Boynie' due to the mobility that I had acquired in order to adapt to the new world of travel for family, work and even for spiritual purposes!
Clicking here to see my extensive travel map over time explains why my wife and/or companion may feel hurt when I am away for missing me too much.

My extensive travel to China in search of my ancestral village and also my return trip to Singapore to be the "Be there Dad" for the boys especially when there is an event of theirs may be causing my future wife and companion growing hurts out of missing me too much. Before that I had a business trip to the US and also to visit family there!

After attending Han's performance at the Esplanade, I thought I would create the video below as an appeasement to her online for the relationship of Didi and Boynie! I was exhilarated to feel the theme of all the songs they sang was about love and I chose just their first song for this video with a little touch of personalization at the end, hoping that she can catch it!


After I posted the video clip I made to youtube and played it, the video of the singer Adele happened to play automatically after. Now here is a singer I felt after listening to her who knows how to really express the hurts of love in her songs :



Love hurts when there are arguments



The "What If...?" imaginative Story of Didi and Boynie

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Didi who loved animals.

Then there was also a boy named Boynie who not only loved animals but also felt he was often like one of them who was able to talk or whisper to them!

One day they met each other in a city zoo and felt some connection with each other.

They were worlds apart as she was a nurse in the city hospital...

...while he was an animal trainer who could connect with monkeys or dogs to be called the Whisperer.

They seemed to have several compatible traits with each other like loving to go to the movies...

...and being fans of the same super heroes.

They love playing undercover detectives...

...and to have a good laugh together was a simple enjoyment for both!

Out of the blue, for just a couple of days, they would go up to the hills

Bringing along a willing chaperone who was given a last minute notice of the trip to come with them!

They headed up north to another hill top with the Penang's Kek Lok Si temple

Didi felt the inspiration from seeing a Christmas movie once of a sword fighter on these grounds.

This was a 2011 Christmas movie which can be viewed here.

Boynie caught on to her brain wavelength frequency and joined in. Together they seem to make a fearless pair!

Up and Up they went to another hill in Penang known as Bukit Bukit Bendera

Boynie felt intimidated and sad when he saw a sign he felt referred to him!

Luckily they came to a spot that reassured him all was well...

...that made him feel loved by Didi inspite of who he was.

The view from the top on the island of Penang was exhilarating!

Didi soaked it all in and her mind began to wander.

She had seen the artists at work in Penang and imagined 'what if' what they drew could be real?


She imagine herself with Sun Wukong, the Monkey King that would follow a monk with 2 other friends half pig and a buffalo in a drama she used to watch since young!

As her mind got deeper in the world of imagination, she felt she was flying on a magic carpet!

Boynie still on the hill wondered where she had disappeared to.

Again locking on to her brain frequency, he soon could join her on the flying magic carpet! 

Like their super heroes, they felt they could dive down from the sky above to the land below unhurt.

Little did they know dinosaurs still roamed on the earth below and had to run into a cave for safety.

They were now in an adventure to seek for treasure in the cave but needed to overcome all the obstacles before them like walking on a broken rope bridge across molten lava! 

Next was to protect themselves from mummies who became alive from their tombs!

They had to climb out of a deep well trap that they had fallen into!

There was also a struggle with Ghostly beings who would suddenly appear before them out of nowhere! 

Boynie was nearly swallowed up by a gigantic serpent in one of the tunnels if it were not for Didi who saved him!

At last they found Aladdin's magic oil lamp where Boynie rubbed it and a Genie appeared to give them an awesome reward of gold coins!

They asked for a safer mode of transportation from the Genie like a bicycle which he did grant to them but it had ET as a companion on it who flew them high up in the sky again, even across the moon!

Finally they found by themselves a good old fashioned rickshaw down on earth level...

...where if anything happened like Didi falling off the chair, Boynie could catch her!

Didi has had enough of magic carpets in the air!

They could have found a slow boat to get home...

...but avoided it as unfortunately Boynie was not a good swimmer and would drown if he fell into the water!
They did eventually get back to a 'down-to-earth; state from their dreamland trip, never forgetting how things got out of proportion from what was supposed to be a normal trip!

Didi and Boynie learnt from the trip that what was most precious was not the gold coins or other gifts from the Genie they left behind but the love of their hearts for each other. 

What a great joy it was to see Didi with her big smile and the beautiful night view of Penang island in the background,
She was sitting alone at the back of the ferry that had left the island...

...soon to be joined by Boynie grinning throughout the ferry ride.

He was grateful for the 2 chaperones on the trip. One was added in Penang, seated in the middle of the pic above. It was he who took the photo of Didi and Boynie holding the symbolic heart at the romantic Straits Quay where he had accompanied the loving couple!

Boynie felt charged up by the great success of the trip that seemed to give him a surge of extra energy!

He thought of his buddy in Australia due to this pic taken in Dec last year to say...

... "Look at the grin on my face!"

A thought also went to his guide and travelling companion in China, Wu Yuk Choi, who made some photos in this story possible. The prospects of a 'future wife' for Boynie was mentioned often during their China trip conversations to the extent that he and his wife had booked their flight early to visit Malaysia early in January of the 2016 new year to meet her!

P.S :
An Optimal 'future wife' indeed!

Google+ produced this photo-slide movie on the Story of Didi and Boynie

Postdated development :

Well they did come with another couple Yonnie and Ray who celebrated their 24th Anniversary after they returned to Hong Kong. A commemorative video below was made for their anniversary celebration that was made from pics of their trip and some from this blog post as well, dedicated to them from other couples in love in Hong Kong and Malaysia who became part of their enjoyable holiday.