Photo, avail online at filipinamom.com accessedd 5/31/12
How can I honor you in two paragraphs or less? When I was little, you threatened to cut my feet off if I move to Manila to live with my parents. You told me I talked too much because I was fed some awful part of a pig. You handed me a book from the school library even before I was seven years old. “Stories from Around the World.” Even though I did not understand English, I put stories to the photos, one of them clearly was about a kid who planted red radishes in the shape of a heart as a Valentine to her mom. I offer you the same today, because you have been my Valentine.
At home, my sister Vilma and I would wear your shoes, convinced that pretty soon, the three-inch gap from the tiny balls of our feet to the inside of the heels would fill out. We walked on them with the “toink, toink” sound of the heels on the hardwood floor, each carrying a handbag from your closet, with a sarong style chicken-feed sack material around our waists, a ruler in our hands, pretending to be a teacher like you. I always gazed upon the wall vase, an ear of corn with a little mouse above the desk in your living room. I wanted to own them someday! Whenever you asked us to pull your greying hair, you would entice us by taking out your jewelry box. Gently you would unwrap each trinket and I would exclaim, “Inay pag namatay ka, akin na lang to ha?” (Mom, when you die, may I have this?) My sister was not as vocal and of course she was your heiress. However, I ingratiated myself to you…and I am not saying this as though it is a bad thing!
I and other cousins spent summers in Nueva Ecija since we were in grade school. Our job was to help in your poultry farm. You had fierce Dobermans Jackie and King, a monkey, turkeys, homing pigeons, ducks that bit and chased, a piggery, and farm hands who were amused by us “city kids.” You never knew this but it was hard work to feed and water those damn chickens. My sister Vilma and I would get back at them by pushing the egg back into the hen when it is about to lay eggs. The poor hen had to start all over again! We thought it was funny. One day, you assigned me to give shots to the chickens. After all, I must have said something like wanting to become a doctor. So, armed with the syringe, my cousins would try to shoo the chickens so that they would run towards the other end of the coop where I lay waiting to grab one and give a shot. I am not sure how we kept tabs of who got the shot or not. I was getting too tired; there must have been over 1,000 of those cackling chickens. At some point, I started to give them more than what you instructed me to do. In the morning, the chickens were all quiet and I was very, very alarmed. My cousins and I were sure we killed them with the overdose. I have not been so scared in my life. Did we actually kill them? I must have faced imminent death because I felt my blood drain from my body. Alas, the chickens eventually woke up and everything was fine.
You told me, “You should never rely on a man to support you. You need to do that yourself. The best way to do that is to be educated.” And I knew how to play you—I would come home to you wearing my shortest skirt. You would ask why I was dressed as such and I would say, “It is too expensive to buy longer skirts and jeans.” You would make sure to give me a large amount of cash, so that “Next time you visit, you will be wearing a pair of jeans or longer skirts.”
I was not the black sheep in my family but I certainly was burnt orange or something loud when I was in my teens! I would go to you and say, “I have a situation. I made a student loan and now I have to pay it back and I do not have money.” This was my scam: I would spend the tuition money sent to me from the USA, buying records, pizza, hanging out with my friends. I would then turn around and get a student loan that’s payable at the end of the semester. Because you wanted me to get my grades, you would give me the money to pay my loan. You never asked what I did with my tuition money, you never chastised; you would just hand me the money to pay my loan, asking me to provide a receipt later.
You decided that I would be better off to leave the Philippines, to escape the oppressive Marcos regime. I was blacklisted and you wanted me to leave as soon as the authorities allowed me to hold a passport. You put up the money for our tickets, and before I boarded my Pan Am flight, you handed me something wrapped in tissue paper, “These are the earrings you like. You do not have to wait for me to die to own them.” I still have them- old, tarnished, and special.
I just became a mom when you paid us a visit in the USA many years later. Upon your return to the Philippines, I wrote to you and I said “You have seen how I am struggling as a single mother, so why not help me?” With you I felt imperviously entitled. My charm still worked! But I was not scamming you. I really needed your help. That has always been our relationship; I whined and you gave. I should have been ashamed of myself but that was my way with you. I love you Inay!
Wherever you are, thank you for your generosity and love for me and my son. You were my second mother, the sister of my beloved own, but you guided me and my siblings as though we were your own with love, and at times jealousy, admonition, encouragement, and oftentimes with me, indulgence. You were a self-made woman, ahead of your times, an educator and a successful businesswoman. I liked that you indulged me and spoke with me in English! You must have laughed at my pretentiousness!
Thank you for leaving the corn-and-mice wall vases to me, they hang in my bedroom. Thank you for your generous gift to my son. I am grateful, and I have not touched a penny of it! You will be proud to know, I actually matured and you were hugely responsible for some of my kick-ass attitude, and for my sometimes elitist attitude. I offer no excuse. I do not suffer stupidity lightly.
My siblings and I have discussed memorializing you and our parents by building classrooms in Santo Cristo Elementary School in your honor. Maraming, maraming salamat Inay.
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