GMA Brandtalk
Tracking
Archives
My mother’s hand
It was hot as any a noontime summer could be. I could hear the murmured novena prayers of the people around me as I knelt on the pew and slowly but surely fell forward onto the floor of the Baclaran church. Suddenly, I couldn’t see anything and there was tingling in my fingers.
In a second, I felt my mom take my hand and jerk me upward, then she ushered me out of the crowded church, past aisles I could not see. I could hear though, someone saying, “‘Yung bata o!” then soon felt a soft breeze on my face.
We were outside on the sidewalk and I then inhaled my mother’s perfume. Moments after, I could see again, and beheld my mom’s face in front of me, kneeling down on the pavement and still holding her perfume bottle under my nose.
I was about six maybe, or five, or seven. My mom brought me with her that day to Baclaran Church for novena but I passed out due to hypoglycemia, as we hadn’t had lunch yet after a two-hour bus ride from Quezon City.
I think I was about four when the whole family went up to Baguio, and I remember shouting at the top of my lungs before the stairwell in the house we were staying in: “Gusto ko nang umuwi!” I was crying, scared of the haunted-like house with brown walls, until my brother Boy, who was about 16 years older than me, shouted back, “Sige, umuwi ka na!” I was shocked, and perplexed as to how in the world I could get home. I could not even go down the stairs alone.
My mom then picked me up and I remember she brought me to a room with a white ceiling, where we lay down on a bed and she told me stories and sang a lullaby. My next memory of this Baguio trip was me biking—the next day probably—in Burnham Park. I was smiling as I rode a little three-wheel tricycle and it felt good to feel the wind on my face.
Ever since I was small, my mom played the role of my protector from harm, hurts, and all imagined fears. I remember sounding worried in the bedroom on my first day of school, asking, “Paano kung pina-spell sa akin ABC? Alam ko A—e-i. Yung B, b-i. Eh pa’no yung C? S-i o c-i?” It was a real dilemma for a child like me who had so many questions and thought too much, and my mom just somehow assured me going to school would be good for me.
When I was done with school many years after, I told my mom I was going on a blind date one night. When I arrived home in a taxi all alone at almost 11 p.m. and she saw the distraught look on my face, she asked, “Bakit, anong nangyari?” I didn’t reply, prompting her to sit up straight and with more urgency ask, “Anong nangyari?” I just said, “Wala. Nagyayaya lang siya.” There were jerks in the world, I discovered. My mom didn’t say anything but I knew she was very much concerned.
Years after, in the week I was due to give birth to my son, my mom traveled many miles to be with me in the US, and was a bit disappointed to find out I had already given birth by the time she arrived. But she was there right beside me at my sister’s home the day after I gave birth, and when my son woke up loudly at midnight crying, she ran to and fro, helping pick my son up and bringing him to me since I just couldn’t pick him up, my body was all sore.
I have many more memories of my mom: of her bringing me to the ER when my appendix threatened to burst, of her accompanying me to a therapist when I had a back problem—and almost ripping the curtain away when she heard me shrieking in pain. She was there to unbox my many boxes when I moved back home and didn’t have the strength or urge to sort out the things in the boxes, four months after the move.
Needless to say, she held my hand throughout all these years until the time came she could hardly grasp my hand literally.
Two years ago, in January 2015, I held her hand while she lay in bed at home one night, and she squeezed back my hand, although weakly. Her body was wracked with pain due to cancer, but she never admitted the pain to us even as we never admitted to her that she had cancer.
A couple of months after, I found myself holding her hand again, this time in a hospital room, as she labored to breathe. She could not squeeze back my hand anymore.
And then the next day, I told her on the phone past 4 a.m.: “I love you, Mommy. God loves you. Thank you for everything.” Seconds after, my sister grabbed the phone and said, Mommy’s gone.
At the wake, my siblings and I asked each other if my mom had any “bilin.” She didn’t leave any, but it turned out she asked the helpers to tell us all: “‘Pag wala na ako, sabihin mo sa kanila, ‘wag pabayaan si Karen.” When I heard this, I was overwhelmed with a mixture of emotions—gratitude, sorrow, love, wonder, I don’t know what else. Up until she knew she was going to leave Earth soon, she was still protecting me, loving me.
It’s Mother’s Day today, and it happens to be my mom’s birthday too. She would have been 86 today. Daily, I thank God for the gift of my mom, and ask Him to tell her I love her. God couldn’t have chosen a better mom for me than my mom, Lily.
