A tribute to my mother on Mother's Day

Today is Mother’s Day and yesterday I had planned to write a tribute to my mother – well, this piece is still about her and still pays tribute to her somehow…but I just want to insert a short piece about my brother. You see last night, my mom suddenly texted me to inform me about the doctor’s preliminary findings on the painful lump that has been bothering him for quite some time already. She told me that it may be stage 2 cancer…I was a bit shocked and it made me cry. My mom said her knees trembled and her stomach made flipflops when she heard the news so I did not let on how I felt. Instead, I told her to be calm and to allow Puloy to undergo biopsy just to make sure… I was afraid that she might get affected too much by the distressing news and may suffer an anxiety attack or something. After all she is already over 60 and news like this has the tendency to trigger an attack even if just last week she was still up and about and feeling iffy about her last trip to Pagadian.

Despite her age, my mom has never really felt the stresses of her years. The last time she was hospitalized was for an asthma attack about five or more years ago and she has not been back to the hospital since. Sure, there were the usual aches and pains that come with age but I am quite surprised that she still can travel all the way to Pampanga twice or even thrice every week just to teach classes at Assumption. She is also a consultant in a number of other firms and her job in these companies allows her to travel to a number of different places all over the country. But still she manages her time and energy well. Well, I guess its partly because it’s the kind of life she has been accustomed to and making her just sit down in some quiet little corner and brood will probably be the one that will kill her.

I remember the days when we were growing up… she is often away traveling to some exotic country or distant province. This is why we grew up at the hands of the different yayas… but we have no reason to complain. Because during the times when she is home, she makes it a point that we are well-fed and that even if she leaves us for a week, we’d still be able to savor her home-cooked meals (coz she cooks food for a week and stores them in the fridge for us to reheat)

What’s more during the times that she is home, she supervises our homework, attends all our homeroom meetings and field demonstrations in school and makes sure that all our needs are provided for. Her work demands that she leave her family periodically and so we make do with what precious time we had with her. But apparently, this was not enough for our father. After all, as kids who were we to complain and demand much of her time… but as a wife and partner to my dad, he found her absence as an excuse to stray and find someone else to take her place.

I am not really sure who’s to blame in this case…maybe it’s my dad’s fault because he should have understood my mother’s job and not seek solace somewhere else. Or maybe it was my mom’s fault because she should have prioritized her family more… Or maybe they just weren’t meant to be…

More than ten years (I really can’t remember when…) have passed since they separated… their marriage has since been annulled, my dad has a new wife now… but there are moments when I feel that my mom is still bitter over their parting. No, I don’t think she still loves him or that she’s still hoping they’ll still get back together… but I feel that she still hasn’t found her closure… she still hasn’t moved on. So many times whenever we bring up some talk about my father she would often retort with bitterness and wonder why during the time they were together, he never did that for her… In his way, I guess my dad also loved her, I guess he just had a different way of showing it.

I am still not sure what my mother really wants to hear or get from my dad – I don’t think it’s really about the money. She has too much pride to ask for that… she can still work for her keep so I guess it’s not really her beef. I guess she just really wants for him to apologize – for hurting her…for deceiving her all these years. And I don’t know how to do that for her (make him apologize that is…) I never really knew what was wrong with their marriage… I was too young to see and understand what was happening between them. But I knew something was different about them as a couple. Sometimes, when my mom gets into a certain mood… she shares me snippets about her life with my father – and they were all mostly bad memories, sometimes I can’t even remember if these things indeed happened, but I’ll take her word for it… she has so much pain pent up inside her, I don’t think she can afford to make up even more.

And so during moments like this, I wish I knew how to comfort her … because I know no matter how much I tell her that I love her, it will never suffice…after all I’m just her daughter. But I’ll find a way to make her happy somehow…it’s the least I can do for that special someone who has sacrificed most of her life for us, her family. It’s about time I show her how much I appreciate her as my mother… HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!