Start Here

Hi! I’m Mirella Medenilla-Santiago or Lella to family, friends and readers. I call myself a HaLo – a Happy Solo - a loving single mom to two wonderful boys…make that two wonderful men. I have to keep reminding myself they’re no longer babies (that’s either an age-induced memory lapse or I’m just in denial). My HaLo stripes were earned from 30 years of struggling with all the trials of raising my children alone. My husband died from an industrial accident when my boys were aged 3 and barely 2.

How did I survive? I believe it was only by the grace of God. Faith in Him has gifted me with a happy life. For me, happiness is not about having everything you want in this world. It’s not about getting all your prayers answered. It’s not even about a problem-less existence. For me, there is joy and blessings even in our trials because HAPPINESS COMES FROM SEEING MIRACLES EVERYDAY.

I am blessed to have found my purpose in life: to write. And my passion is to inspire people with the things that I write, to be used by God as His vessel, a channel through which His Word flows. About 9 years ago, I wrote my first blog, My B.A.G. of Miracles, as an offshoot of the gratitude journal I jotted down every night. They began as mere footnotes in my planner about the Blessings I received, the things I Accomplished or Achieved because God empowered me and the Good He prodded me to do for others. That blog paved the way for me to write for Didache and Gabay, daily Bible reflection guides for Catholics, and Kerygma Magazine. The skills that I developed as a contributing writer for Kerygma combined with God’s leading to use my woundedness as a solo parent gave birth to my book The Happy Solo Kit -Tools and Supplies You Need to Survive Solo Parenting without Losing Your Marbles. The book was not just about my journey but also about my friends and co-servants at The Feast Alabang’s Solo Parents Ministry (now called HIP for Hero Independent Parents). Their different status as widows, separated, divorced, unmarried singles, adoptive, spouses of overseas workers and “It’s complicated” gave me a treasure trove of stories rich in wisdom and insight to write about. It was chosen as finalist of the Jaime Cardinal Sin 2016 Catholic Book Awards for Family Life Category.

Then my blogger friends encouraged me to take blogging seriously on a different platform. So, Happy Faith came to be. To be honest, it was confusing to write for both as they were almost about the same topics – my topsy-turvy solo parent life that needed God’s clean up. Plus busyness overwhelmed my desire to write. I had to take over the reigns of running our household when my mother passed away. As head of Media Ministry at Feast Alabang, I had a bulletin to publish every week. I had editing gigs and a million and one other excuses. Even when I had stepped down as Media head, blogging was sill done occasionally. I only diligently wrote daily journals on my travels. While on our Marian pilgrimage last year (2019), I somehow “lost” My B.A.G. of Miracles. I could no longer post and low-tech me didn’t know how to recover it. Before that, I had given up Happy Faith because it was not sustainable. (By the way, I have a fitness blog, Happy Fit & Fab, and that was all I was left with.) I no longer had the avenue to talk about solo parent life and my faith. But God has a plan and it is unfolding.

With the lockdown caused by COVID-19, I was given time to rethink, refocus and reboot. Today, I am reconnecting with the world through Happy Solo Faith - reflections on faith and life by a solo mom. With God’s leading, I hope this blog will ease the passage of grieving, overwhelmed-by-responsibilities, gutted-by-rejection, fearing-for-their-children (and other things that burden our ilk) solo parents from their pain points to peace. I pray that my story and those of my other solo parent friends will inspire you to carry on. Tips on how to handle matters that cause solo parents sleepless nights will also be posted here.

If, on the other hand, you’re already in a place of peace, if you’ve kept your marbles through it all and achieved HaLo status, let’s just hang out together here. Tell me your story and I will write about it. Your redemption tale might be another’s balm. I’m excited for this blog to be the digital extension of my book.

Years ago, I set up a Happy Solos page on Facebook as a support group. Sadly, I have not been able to administer that as well as I wanted to. With this renewed focus, I plan (pray for me please) to revive the page and use it as a Prayer Board and for Tell Me Your Story. Like I said, I’m technically challenged so please bear with me.

Let me start our journey together with this passage:

“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.” – Psalm 68:5

Whether you’re a widow, an unmarried single, separated, divorced, an adoptive parent or one whose husband is working in a faraway land, remember you and your children are covered by this verse. God is your defender. May that thought calm your fears and give you hope.