My Mother

January 13, 2009

I think of my mother constantly. There is not an hour that passes that I don’t think of her. Everything that happens around me, whether big or small, funny or sad, good or bad, seemingly significant or unimportant…everything brings my thoughts back to my mother.

When I’m in the kitchen cooking or someplace eating, I think of how my mother made certain dishes. When I’m doing the laundry or when I notice how wrinkled my clothes are, I think of how she spent hours to wash our clothes clean and her rituals in starching and ironing them. When I’m at work taking care of an elderly lady, God! I think of my mother. It should have been her I’m helping to dress up, it should have been her arms and legs I’m rubbing to ease arthritis pain away, it should have been her I’m feeding and giving medication to. Why didn’t I do those things to my mother as much as I’m doing them to this lady? Didn’t I have more chances? Was I a different person then? Did my circumstances get in the way of me reaching out more to her?

When I hear of people wanting to end their lives, I think of my mother. How she clung to her own life till the last minute. She was a wife and a mother who struggled through problems after problems, was paralyzed in her early 80’s, her speech slurred and was bedridden for the last four years and eight months of her life. But she lived and got what she could get out of life—enjoying and celebrating each moment that she had. She looked forward to Christmases and New Years, her birthday, her family member’s birthdays, her daughter’s or son’s homecoming from work abroad, a new great grandbaby. She tried to keep abreast of news in our town’s politics, neighborhood gossip, bits of showbiz, updates on her grandchildren in the US. She savored the food given to her and requested ones that she missed eating. She engaged in conversations with her visitors, unmindful of whether her words were understood or not. My! How she loved recalling the good old days of her youth, the Second World War, the “Peace Time”, fiestas and excursions, weddings and funerals, reunions and processions. She recalled how her father made raw sugar, how her Kuya Simon won wrestling fights, how her Diko Andoy was abducted by the Japanese soldiers and never came back, how she took care of her six brothers and sisters when their mother died when she was only 18, the times when she and her cousins caught crabs. She loved telling stories of her life, and she listened to other people’s life stories, too. She never lost interest in whatever was going on around her. That’s how I know she loved living.


January 22, 2009

When I lay myself to bed, I think of my mother. I can smell her body like when I used to sleep beside her as a little girl. She had that distinct smell, not perfume or bath soap-fragrant but a mixture of the salty summer sweat of a hardworking woman and the sweet milk from a nursing mother. Yes, that was how my mother smelled. Oh how I loved to come home to that smell whenever life got tough or when i fell ill. It was like settling back into her cradling arms where I felt safe and cared for and loved.

It was while lying awake on that straw mat-lined hard wooden bed, when nights were still young, that my mother taught me some English words. She finished only 3rd grade but she had, to me, a tremendously rich English vocabulary. As a 1st grader, I thought my mother was very smart in the English language. I remember her teaching me the word “kite”. That was big! And she taught me while she ran her fingers thru my very fine hair seemingly trying to catch some lice that might be crawling on my scalp. And I would sniff that sweet, salty smell while I snuggled closely to her trying hard to store in my five and a half-year old memory bank all those English words until I fell asleep.


January 23, 2009

When I look outside on the street, I think of my mother. I see her walking hurriedly past buses and jeepneys and cars, holding a big bag, her now slightly bowed legs carrying that overweight body --at 70, at 75, at 80. She’s coming to my house, she knew I needed her. I didn’t even have to ask. It didn’t matter if she had to commute through 20 miles of fume and dust, bumpy roads and heavy traffic. She made herself available all the time. And she always brought some fresh vegetables, or some glutinous rice or bananas and sweet potatoes in her big bag. Her big bag also contained Bengay, chili plaster, a tall bottle of coconut oil mixed with crushed ginger and Omega liniment which she alternately used for her swollen aching knees. My mother thought of me despite her own pain, her health issues, her distance, her limited resources.


February 12, 2009

When I cry in my pillow, I think of my mother. There were nights that she lay awake crying quietly. I knew she was crying because she wouldn’t answer when I called to her. And when she had to reply, she would clear her throat first to sound better. She endured the pains of life by drowning them in her tears in the dark – alone. Tomorrow would be a new day when she had slept her sorrows away. I wish I shared her pain during those times. Could I have understood? Could I have felt it? Surely, now I understand, now I feel it. Why did it have to take my own experiences to understand what my mother had gone through? No wonder my mother was always there during my most trying times. She knew how it felt. She understood my anger, my pain, my fears, my insecurities. She never left me. And she has never really left me…never left me.


February 13, 2009

When I consider throwing in the towel, I think of my mother. She never gave up. Not on her marriage, not on her children, not on dealing with poverty. She endured …patiently. Even when there was marital tension, dinner would be ready on the table for my father. When her youngest son flunked one year in high school due to his own negligence, she would walk past rice fields and rivers and feeder roads to see him at our farm hut by the foothills where my father sent him in “exile” for months toiling the soil. When her oldest son got incarcerated during the first year of Martial Law in the Philippines, it pierced her heart in a way only mothers and God know. My mother initially passed out a few times but sprang back on her feet, got down on her knees praying, ordered everyone of her children to pray and at times went with my father to politicians and relatives and people in the military who could help my brother get free from such horrible dictatorial injustice. When another son had to go through long years of trial in court for a wrongful accusation, my mother supported him, eventually selling a piece of land she inherited from her father to pay for the legal expenses. When in college, one Wednesday, I had to go to school early but my mother realized she had no money to give me for my bus fare, she did not sulk or cry in self pity. She hurriedly went out of the house, gone for about half an hour and came back with 14 pesos for me. My mother didn’t grill steak, never baked lasagna, served ice cream only during barrio fiestas. She stewed beef with sigarillas, talbos ng camote, sitaw, kalabasa. Yes, beef…I mean bone chops with some bits of meat. She didn’t complain. And neither should her family. She made the best tasting and healthiest stew or vegetable soup! She said we were eating better than they did during the Japanese occupation. Count our blessings! Up until now I’m amazed at how I grew up not knowing we were poor. I never realized we were poor! My mother never said so, nor did she make us feel it. We had Che-Vital cheese on the table once in a while when my cousins only looked forward to Eggo sandwich spread. We went to family excursions and picnics annually to Antipolo and Luneta Park. My father would buy us grapes and apples at Christmastime and lots of lanzones when they’re in season. Children in our neighborhood only ate fruits they grew in their own backyards. We would take the bus to Manila and watch movies at Opera and Life Theaters and eat at Little Quiapo Restaurant at least twice a year while my neighbors only settled with free movies shown by mobile operators in open rice field areas, usually after the harvest season. Who wouldn’t think we were rich! When I think about it now, maybe that was how my mother and father raised confident secure children. We could be poor but we didn’t have to know that every morning we woke up.

There were always better things to do than dwell on her problems. She planted vegetables and raised hogs and chicken in our backyard; she fixed the pig pens and the fences; she scrubbed the window sills, the stairs, the sink, the walls and the pots and pans and whatever she could get her hands on with her pakiling leaves. She would take out of our antique aparador and escaparate some fine clothes that might need re-washing or fixing before their colors turn dull or the fabric get stained. She would make an inventory of stuff that for her made or will make history or simply a story: her wedding dress, my oldest brother’s baptismal gown, my oldest sister’s beautiful lace dresses, family photo albums, my medals, report cards, costumes in past school presentations. She would prepare delicious snacks from whatever was available in the kitchen or the backyard: cassava, banana, glutinous rice, coconut, jackfruit. She sewed pajamas, dusters, seat covers, pillow cases, curtains; she embroidered diapers, blankets, infant clothes and binders for forthcoming grandbabies. And yes, she spent hours and hours doing the laundry. She washed the whitest whites, the brightest colors, starched the crispiest, ironed the smoothest, folded the neatest, hang clothes in the most orderly manner, carefully put them away in cabinets and shelves by categories. My mother was the most meticulous person when it came to clothes care.

My mother had a servant spirit. She served his family with awesome dedication. She took care of all her grandchildren except the ones who were born when her osteoarthritis got worse. She washed the diapers of each and every one of them. She took care of her daughters and daughters-in-law post childbirth. She cooked the best dishes and delicacies which we looked forward to whenever we come home. She took care of her brother, her father and my father through their years of serious illness until the day they died in her arms.


March 18, 2009

I think of my mother while I’m driving my car. I remember when I got my first car. I had my nephew drive it for me making sure that she was the first passenger in that car. My, was she proud! Her baby owns a car! That car represented “luxury” and “convenience” to a woman who grew old walking on rough roads and narrow dividers of rice fields, riding squeaky calesas, noisy tricycles, and smoggy jeepneys and buses. It was something for a wife who peddled eggs, eggplants, pan de sal and rice and cassava cakes on foot to augment her husband’s income. It was overwhelming for a mother who did laundry service for rich people to provide for her daughter’s college allowance. My mother not only felt proud. She felt rich!


March 25, 2009

Today is my 7th anniversary in the United States. And I’m thinking about my mother. I left her in the Philippines bedridden. I wasn’t sure if she actually understood that I might not see her again. On the night before our flight, I lay beside her in her bed trying to feel her, trying to sniff that distinct smell, trying to listen to her soft voice. Did she really want me to go? Did she realize I won’t be visiting with her every weekend anymore? That I won’t be bringing her favorite Goldilocks custard pie anymore? That I won’t be feeding her anymore while giving her updates on my kids and my neighbors? During the last four years of her life my mother spent most of her time lying flat on her back looking up to the ceiling of her very old run-down house. For one whole week, she would be waiting for me to come see her. She would repeatedly ask my eldest sister when and what time me and my kids would be coming. And my sister would give her a bath, brush her teeth, spray her a little cologne, powder and lotion her body, change her sheets with fresh, crisply-starched ones, give her a manicure and pedicure, fix her occasionally permed hair, put on her floral print dress and get her all set to see her darling daughter. How could I fail her? Even when I was almost crawling on my knees from exhaustion being a very busy career woman, a single mother of two with no house help. I would get in my car with the kids, drop by the nearby Hi-Top Supermarket to get her Quaker oatmeal, Milo powdered chocolate drink , Tang or 8 O’clock powdered orange juice drink, 4 or 5 bags of Tena adult diapers, some freshly baked bread and pastries and then head to my hometown of Montalban. I would take the faster but garbage-smelling Batasang Pambansa route to get to my weeklong-waiting ailing mother, on the way eating some wheat bread straight out of the bag, or steaming hot Japanese sweet corn on the cob which we bought from peddlers on Katipunan Avenue. There was no more time to grab a decent breakfast or lunch or brunch. My mother would be waiting too long. And as soon as I get there, I would call “Nanay!” What relief! What comfort to see my Nanay. Even when she could not get on her feet, it always felt good to see my Nanay. Her excited gaze at me and my children was always worth the trip. And I would reach down to her and sniff that distinct smell and touch her soft flabby tummy. I’m home.

“Did you bring me something?”, she would ask. And she would eat her custard pie while listening to my weekly updates. And in between bites, she would mumble a list of people who came to see her during the week.

That night before our departure, I asked her what she wanted me to send her from America. “Chocolates!” She said that with the innocent delight of a little girl. In her lifetime, my mother didn’t frequently have the luxury of experiencing the smooth decadent bitter-sweet taste of really good chocolates. Chocolates were a treat from her sons coming home for vacations from their Middle East jobs many years ago. And everybody knew she would even save them for her grandchildren. I looked at my mother’s face, remembered my father used to say how much I took after her looks, wrapped my arms tightly around her and sniffed that distinct smell. You will have chocolates, Nanay. Lots of chocolates. And then I hugged her some more…and sniffed that distinct smell some more...for the last time.

By: April