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Bella, My Mother
Sa gitna ng Covid-19, we’re celebrating her birthday apart.
Sabi niya, “Thank you, ‘nak. Ngayon, kahit may nangyayari, at ease ako kasi nandiyan ka. May mga blessings naman talaga na dumarating.”
The gift of peace, for someone who had lived most of her adult life lacking one. I have found that “service” is my love language. It feels comforting to give my mother the “gift” of peace, like there is someone that she could rely on.
She, who has been scarred and changed, by never-ending poverty and tribulations continue on. She, who has spent the better half of her life ploughing through crisis after crisis to keep her children, three of them, all as equally stubborn as the other one, alive and breathing.
Not perfect, she is. I remember that one of my greatest motivation when I was still studying was to be stable enough so that I can make her better. Still short on funds, I realized that the only way I can do it now is to love her unconditionally and to accept her wholeheartedly.
What she has is a strength that is difficult to see at first glance. This woman, small and maldita and full of love for her children, paved the successful path for me through incessant nagging and never-ending service. I grew up poor, true, but this woman never allowed me to be hungry. She magically creates food out of whatever is available, meager rice or recycle bins-grown vegetables. She hugs and cooks and cleans, almost to a fault. She grilled the importance of education and did everything she must to give it to her children, even if she must sell vegetables to have pamasahe so that she can attend the seminar workshop of an organization where her child is being a part of. She will be a katulong in someone else’s house in order to help put her child, a scholar in Ateneo then, through school.
The katulong stint was short, of course. Her equally maldita daughter ordered her to stop because she’s old then and the work is difficult for her. I instead, younger and with more access to opportunities, worked as an English tutor, then. But her intention is clear enough, she’d do anything for her children.
Personally, I’d always disagreed with that notion. Seeing how that can be both destructive and constructive, I’d always advocate for balance, to do everything you can for your children but to love yourself enough, too. This way, our children will learn that parents’ needs must be respected, too.
But she’s a different woman from me, reared under more difficult circumstances and survived through the most difficult trauma. Her strength is different from mine. And today, in her birthday, I honor that strength.
Today, I thank God for the gift of her life. She’s Bella, and she’s my mother.
April 25, 2020
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It was such an overwhelming as well as emotional moment were we could see their ups and downs through the frame of our heart. Each of their names where engraved on it.their journey through our life / our journey through their life , it may be love, anger, disappointment, frustrations, expectations , hope ….everything gone reel by reel … as every teacher feels so proud that they brought some changes in their life that could possibly help them in many ways .