RECALLING ROBERTISMS [Scenes from a life: My mother by the curb]

My Mamay's death anniversary is on July 31. An opportune time, I think, to bring back this Robertisms as the first of the Recalling Robertisms series.

Scenes from a life: My mother by the curb
August 4, 2002

There were three main buildings in the campus [of the Aquinas University of Legazpi]. Each one referred to as a letter -- A, L and S for administrative, library and science. A facade of the campus buildings would not be complete without the silhouette of the majestic Mt. Mayon in the background. For the university indeed had the famous volcano as its backdop. A breathtaking view we've always taken for granted.

To get to the campus coming from the Legazpi city center, you have to cross a bridge over the legendary Yawa river after traversing the barrio of Rawis. The campus' border with the river is marked by a huge grotto to the Virgin Mary dedicated to the Holy Rosary. The Dominicans who own and manage the university honor the Virgin Mary as their patroness, specially the Virgin of the La Naval de Manila.

In the late 70's, poor students like me would take the huge and truck-like university school bus that plied the city center-Rawis campus route specially for us. So we, freshmen high school students, would find ourselves seating side by side with university students in the black and white bus. The bus driver won't accept your coins to ride the bus. You would have to buy a ticket from the university bookstore and use those tickets everytime you use the bus. They were selling the tickets for 15 centavos then.

While the richer students, including some of my own classmates, would be brought to school and then later on picked up by their own family vans or cars, we would ride the bus.

It was one of those afternoons after class, while riding the bus, that I saw my mother by the curb in front of the train station. The train station was one of the usual stops for the bus route. Many of the students in the university call the side of the railroad tracks home. The train would still stop in Legazpi then. My mother was busy with her pechay and mustasa trade then. She would gather all the pechay and mustasa from Bigaa to Arimbay. Even as far as Sto. Domingo, and near the foot of Mt. Mayon. These vegetables would be needed in Manila specially after typhoons would have rendered gulay Baguio inaccessible to the residents of the metropolis and suburbs.

My mother was wearing one of her usual bestida. Mamay was never fond of pants. It was in Kanebo prints. No sleeves. Her purse hidden firmly under her armpit. She was wearing her glasses. Her gaze was directed toward where our bus came from. She must be waiting for her pechay and mustasa to come by. After all, the vegetables had a train to catch.

Invariably, the vegetables would be packed half a meter high between two ladders made out of bamboos, with the bamboo ladders securely tied with abaca rope. The bamboo ladders offered the needed ventilation for the vegetables when the shipments are packed so close in the train's baggage car. It was ingenious packing at its best. Cheap too. I've always wondered though what happened to the bamboos after the vegetables got to Divisoria.

Mamay never saw me while I was on the bus. But I saw her. I did not call her attention even as I remember one of my classmates saying that there my mother was, standing by the curb.

As the bus pulled away from the curb, I could only look at Mamay standing by the curb. Waiting.