Mamay was who kept us together.
Though the family had to be scattered into different places (my sisters in college in Manila and in Los Banos, my father in Nueva Ecija, my brothers in the US or with their own families in Albay), Mamay was like the safety pin that held us together. To keep us connected despite the distances. With her letters specially. I've seen her write Papay and Kuya and my two sisters in college. They were longish letters written in her longhand. So full of anxiety over their well-being while they were away from home. Full of vignettes of life in Daraga together with the rest of the family. Of how the business fared or failed....
With Papay, she started the family on many business ventures that took us from Nueva Ecija to Albay. She was the viajera who did not have second thoughts about uprooting her family from familiar albeit uncertain territory to new and unchartered terrain but which promised a better future. It was her way of sustaining and nurturing us.
When she left, we hit bottom. I never felt so deprived. With her around, we felt abundant even if we weren't wealthy. Home-cooked meals. New clothes on our birthdays and for Christmas. Weekly movies. She loved watching movies with us. She loved going to Sunday Mass and having our photographs taken at a studio later. She loved asking us to take huge watermelons to our teachers.
She was a very motherful mother, if there ever was one.
This is why I could never leave her out of my memory. There is not a night that goes that I don't think of her. Of praying for her soul. She had a difficult life on earth, I only wish heaven for her up there. Because you see, it's the only thing I could now do for her.
She left when I was so young. When all I could think of was myself. When my world revolved around me. Now that I am older, now that I'm in a position to buy her things and spend for her, she's no longer around. This always brings a lump in my throat. Thinking of the ways I could have made life a bit easier for her and I now couldn't. Not then. Not now. Not ever.
I always make it a point to find an opportunity for my family to come together. When I'm in town, we should have dinner together. When it's my birthday, I ask them to celebrate with me though I am here (in Riyadh) and they are there (in Manila). This is my own way of connecting us to each other, the way Mamay tried to do when she was still physically with us.
As I think about these things now, I realize that Mamay has been the most influential person to me. She continues to be my inspiration. And someone I will long for, for the rest of my life. I love my Mamay. I just never told her so.
