‘Love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark.… To have been loved so deeply…will give us some protection forever.’– J.K. Rowling
THE second Sunday of May is Mother’s Day not just in the Philippines but throughout the world. That Mother’s Day is a pretty big deal in our country is no surprise considering the all-important place of the mother in Filipino culture and family life. Though curiously, the tradition of setting aside a special day to honor mothers and mother figures is fairly recent, probably introduced by our American colonizers.
The tradition of officially honoring mothers began in 1921, initiated by the Ilocos Women’s Club. It became an annual nationwide celebration every first Monday of December in 1936 through an official declaration by President Manuel L. Quezon. Mother’s Day celebrations in those days featured performances by schoolchildren dedicated to their mothers. They carried chains of the cadena de amor, the vine with pink and white flowers and heart-shaped leaves. Those participants whose mothers had passed on carried the white cadena de amor. I can’t remember when I last saw a cadena de amor. Some say it is actually the present-day bougainvillea.
In 1987, the Mother’s Day celebration was fixed by President Corazon C. Aquino at May 5. Sen. Loi Estrada would later introduce a bill declaring the first Monday of December to be Mother’s Day. But the date would again be moved to its present designation to coincide with its observance in other countries.
How often do we read or hear of people attributing what they have become to the love and sacrifices of their mothers? One of the greatest American presidents, George Washington, was quoted as saying: “My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual, and physical education I received from her.”
The bond between mothers and their children is especially close, though they may be fraught at times, but always there is the love that binds. The American writer Pearl S. Buck describes it humorously but succinctly. “Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together.”
While I am a mother, I am also a proud daughter of my exceptional mother. I am a mother of three wonderful children, all grown up with their own families. Whenever we gather to celebrate Mother’s Day, I fondly remember my mother, Sofia.
She was a formidable, dominating figure, a mother to her siblings, to her mom, to me and everyone else. She was Madrina, the Spanish term for godmother, to three generations of members of our extended maternal family, though she was in truth godmother only to the eldest grandchild. This is a role that she took seriously, presiding over family crises, extending a helping hand to a needy sibling, offering aid and comfort to a nephew or niece under punishment by strict parents.
The eldest daughter of eight children, she commanded the lifetime respect and affection of all her younger siblings and their spouses. Having lost their father when they were still quite young, my mother and the oldest brother who were the only ones of college age by then, had to take on the care and responsibility, particularly the education, of their younger siblings. As a young girl, she was already secretary to my grandfather who was a member of the first Philippine Assembly, and was an accomplished hostess at the many gatherings hosted by a busy politician. Because of this, she was exempted from doing her share of household chores, much to the annoyance of her younger sisters.
My mother was one of the first female graduates of the University of the Philippines. Her field was literature and she acquired quite a reputation as an awesome and accomplished teacher. She was Mana Pia to her students and was in great demand. She was passionate about English literature, mounted dramas for school programs, encouraging the students to memorize by heart her favorite poems by Edgar Allan Poe, Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Keats, William Wordsworth, John Milton, among others.
Having been widowed by the war (my late father was a medical captain in the US Army), she started teaching in our hometown. When she remarried, she moved to the city, teaching at Leyte Colleges in Tacloban, and still later at the Leyte Trade School, now the Eastern Visayas State College.
When I was sent to convent school in Manila, she would fascinate me with her letters (some encouraging, some “scolding”), beautifully written in her “artistic” penmanship. When I think about it, maybe these letter-writing episodes made me conscious of storytelling and has inspired me to write creatively about my childhood. My sister, who was later also sent to Manila for high school, would also recall how our mother’s letters kept her “going” during the lonely days she spent in boarding school.
We may not have been indulged materially but I would say we were spoiled with love and concern when we lived with her at home, but most especially with loving letters in the years that we were away at school.
In my early climb in my Spiral, I may have missed a father but I certainly had a mother who cared for me even as I continued my climb.
