(Daily Laborer soberly reflects at some of countless insights about mothers, in honoring mothers, this Mother’s Day.)
The two sequencing stories are true. Ah Kong begs readers to tie up the mystery of the two stories. Name of the mother and her family are withheld to protect their privacy.
Ah Happens to be friend of this family, the husband, a decent working man.
Yet, this story might well be the story of other mothers.
Telling these sequencing stories isn’t to open wounds. Nay, far from it, but to amplify a mother’s affectation for her child, regardless of insurmountable odds.
First story: The lowlander mother was kneeling in the darkening light of the dying day, by the side of her suffering baby at the hospital.
She prayed, “Ama mi, kaasyam daytoy anak mi. Nu anya man ti ipagel mo, pangaasim, ited mu ti biag daytoy anak mi. “(Our Father, look down in thy compassion on my helpless child. Whatever else thou withholdest, give to us the life of our child.)
Wordlessly, the father, besides her, said, “Amen,” as both wiped away the cold sweat from their baby’s forehead who laid motionless on the bed.
The baby’s breast heaved with faint breath of life, his tiny fingers clutched, fist like, while pain of whimper that hovered upon his fevered lips seemed to respond to the whispering of invisible angels also imploring to the Almighty, the “Ama,” Father of all fathers, just like the boy’s mother, imploring fervently.
Father and mother gazed upon their child with the intensity that none but parents’ hearts can only feel for their children.
Gradually, the baby’s pain of whimper subsided, his hands relaxed, throbbing of his heart became more tranquil, moisture of sweat diffused and a sweet sleep fell upon the baby.
The sleep clothed the baby like a blanket of hope.
Long and quietly, the baby slumbered. And when the baby’s eyes opened, and his lips moved, his cherub face seemed irradiated with purity and intelligence.
Day in, day out, mother and father watched over their baby, as he was slowly restored to health from the clutches of pneumonia.
You can say, kind reader, that medicine saved the boy. Believe all you want.
On the part of the mother, however, she believed in her heart the Almighty spared their baby, at a time when a certain sickness stalked the lives of children, and she thanked God in her heart that He, the Father, was there to comfort her family.
How many times, during Ah Kong’s watch as Public Information Officer (PIO)of the Department of Health – Cordillera Administrative Region (DOH-CAR) he witnessed countless incidents of parents bringing their children afflicted with pneumonia, to hospitals.
Pneumonia is one among the top killer of children in many regions. It still is.
The second story.
As time passed on, this lowlander mother painfully watched how his son, becoming a grownup, and instead being true to form as upright, morphed into a hardened criminal. ‘Twas said he had taken out men’s lives.
Until one day, the long arm of the law finally caught up with this individual. Cornered, the man decided to shoot it out with responding law enforcement officers.
The man, critically wounded, was rushed to the hospital.
This man had mingled with the wrong crowd and now was paying for it with his life. At the hospital, his countenance gave way to remorse and despair and how he wasted his existence.
The aged mother, informed about her son, hastened to the hospital and stayed by her son’s bedside. Deep in her heart, she knew her son’s time was done.
She wiped the clammy sweat from her son’s brow. She, alone, had welcomed his return and now, she sat by her poor son’s deathbed, to cheer the remaining hours as the icy darkness came settling upon the man’s soul.
The mother refused to dwell on errors of her son’s life. She thought only of what was lovely.
She, in her old age, thought of her son, the infant on her lap. She saw the sunny days as she thought of her son during his child prattles when they both played in childhood’s summer days or stayed indoors during rainy seasons and watched with apprehension as typhoons battered the land.
She thought how proudly she had loved to dwell, saying to friends, “My son will grow up to be a fine young man.”
Sadly, for the mother, it didn’t happen. The hopes of a mother smashed. She thought of these, wept and laid her head upon her son’s breast.
Oh, how the mother remembered a time when her child was nearly wrenched away from her by the clutches of pneumonia.
As the lamp of life slowly hushed her son, her only son, she wished her aged heart was hushed, too.
Grief-stricken, the weakened mother prayed, articulating, “Ama mi, kaasyam daytoy anak ko. Nu anya man ti ipagel mu, pangaasim, anya ti pag-ayatam ket matungpal.” (Our Father, look down in compassion on my helpless child. Whatsoever thou givest or withholdest, enable me to say sincerely, thy will be done.)
The whispering invisible angels also implored to the Almighty, the “Ama,” Father of all fathers.
After the mother prayed, the angel of death took her wayward son for judgement, before the bar of God.
How exquisitely touching is a mother’s sensibility in everything that respects the dead. How slight an allusion calls up her bruised affection and on what minute objects will that affectation dwell when its precious object is gone.
Oh! If there be within the human heart a feeling holier than all else besides, it’s the love coming from a mother’s bosom, even for a sinning, wayward child.
Only death’s blow can sever that mother’s love, yet its felt until the last throb of feeling is at rest.
Here’s an essay submitted to Ah, by Xian Bramley Bengwayan, fourth grader at Saint Louis Laboratory School, Baguio City.
Xian wrote that whenever his Mom gets angry, she goes ballistic, like a monster on Xian, as well as his little brother and sister.
Xian laughing states his Mom “always likes to get angry, yet we know she loves us very much and cares for us.”
Xian, too, has some endearing words for his Lola Rosa, explaining his Lola seems to be angry on just about anything, angry just like Godzilla, the beloved mythical sea dragon of the Japanese.
Yet Xian says, his Lola, just getting angry, shows, “Lola cares.”
Xian refuses to see his Lola being quiet, because he says, “When Lola is angry, it means she is healthy.”
Xian’s declaration is the greatest tribute to all mothers, this Mother’s Day.
