(To all who found time to be with us during the difficult time of the wake of my Mother who passed away last May 8, your presence meant more than my family and relatives can ever convey their profound gratitude. I wish I can list for printing one by one your names, but to do so, it will eat up our Daily Laborer column space. Nevertheless, we remember; we will not forget how you stayed, stood and walked with us during our formidable time. Pirme unay ti pasalamat mi ket ni Apo DIOS ti mangsubalit iti kina-sayaat ti maysa ken maysa kadakayu!)
BAGUIO CITY – The story of my mother, a mere ordinary mother, might as well be the story of thousands of ordinary mothers in Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), at any spur of their moments, at any of their ages and at any of their circumstances. These intrepid women who, in our eyes may only be ordinary persons, are, to the Almighty, extra-ordinary human beings.
Here is a piece of tribute to all mothers, of chapters or vignettes in their lives. To all mothers in Cordillera, wherever you are and what you are doing daily; this could be your story!
They, who give birth to children, and fondly called Momma by their offspring, are all light and liveliness, their sight deep and lucid can beam with animation. Their hairs, either curly, wavy or straight, swirl over their heads like flashes of dark streaks.
To every child growing to adulthood, a mother is all smiles like a twinkling dominance and balance.
A mother is a unique beauty; yet they are perfect mysteries. Every kind of mother’s beauty is extraordinary, and the world is full of it.
When a mother, holding a child on her lap, teaches the kid how the colors of the leaves of the plants are green, teaches that rains mean life, covers her child protectively when forked lightning thunders like hell above and that dews of the morning give promise to everything, understand then, that it takes a lot of courage to raise children.
And mothers have that courage. While some men can be cowards on this chore.
If anything in life deserves to be considered as elegant bliss and foremost duty of a mother, it is this: to watch the dawning disposition of her children, to discover and nurture their earliest buds of thoughts and to feed with useful truths the inquisitiveness of young and curious minds.
And so it was that my Mother directed her children – all seven of them of four brothers and three sisters — to a Bounteous Benefactor and helped lift their little hands yet unstained with vice, in constant prayer to their Father, the Almighty. And it is so, even today.
If there is one mortal feeling free from the impurities of earthly frailty, that reveals to us in slightest hints of supernatural origin, it is that of a mother’s overwhelming and everlasting affection for her children.
The words, ‘Mother,” or “Mama,” or “Mom,” or “Ina,” is our childhood’s talisman, our sanctuary and our defense in all our lampooned misery. These words are the first half-formed words that spill off our babbling tongues when as babies, and it is the first idea that dawns upon our opening minds.
It is the first, the fondest words and the most lasting tie that binds the heart of a baby to a mother. For a mother finally hearing her child utter the words, “Ma,” or “Mama,” the feeling is deeply profound; it lifts her to heights.
It is not the feeling of yesterday or today, but it is a feeling of the beginning and unchangeable; it is independent and self-existent, enduring while one pulse of life (her baby) animates her breast.
If there be anything of mortality that survives the grave, mothers would be wishing that their children would never die. It’s a pure and holy emanation of wish implanted in the hearts of mothers for the dearest and wisest purposes: to be at once their truest and most sacred pleasure and the safety and blessings of their offspring.
Call it mother’s self-passion. So it was that Mother watched over our helpless infancy like a ceaseless guardian angel, anticipated every childish wish, humored every wayward fancy, soothed every transient sorrow, sang sweet lullabies for us to rest and cradled us to her warm and throbbing breasts.
Pray tell me, isn’t it that when sickness prey upon children, a mother’s kisses upon the brows of a child are like quieting pillows and their bosoms stilling our fears?
Probably, there is not in the whole range of combination a sweeter-toned instrument than the voice of a mother anxiously chiding their little children every evening after their frolics to, “Come home, come home, supper is ready!”
And when they see children down, out and discouraged, out of abundance of heart and gentleness, devotion and affection to the quiet duties that constitute motherhood, they speak the soothing of tenderness to the wounded spirit of children and the softened chastening of reproof to the wayward.
They inspire fortitude to the disheartened and spread the gaiety of joy and innocent spirit around family circles and other delicate influences.
When Mother saw her children launched in this wide ocean of tempestuous world, she gazed at our adventurous journeys with half the eagerness of maternal fondness amidst her sad yet unpleasing contest of deep anxiety, fears and hopes.
It was in the dark and dreary precincts of adversity, the cold frown of an unfeeling world, poverty and despair, sickness and sorrow that tried the purity and fervor of Mother.
Mothers can seize the floating magic fancy, embody it in the sketch of a moment and gazing upon their children with dreams of a long past and more perfect existence.
There is no model — for they have their own unique models — for a perfect mother, any more than for the wildflowers we see when we ramble along our region’s pine tree studded mountains and hills.
Like the fresh wild roses bending beneath trembling dews, the Benguet lilies, concealing their modest leaves by the trails and pathways, the sharp scent of the Benguet pines and the warm whiff of edible mushrooms waiting to be plucked from the ground, these, are, like women different, but none superior, and thus all forms of woman’s beauty may be fashioned beyond the reach of comparison.
It would be rather difficult to classify and yet there are cases of the beauty of character of mothers as beautiful as flowers as each mother has her own excelling creations.
It is not alone in the features, but it is so singularly interwoven with the mind that in relating of the charms of mothers, one cannot avoid touching into their characters.
Absence cannot chill a Mother’s love, nor can anything destroy a Mother’s kindness. The lowest degradation of human frailty cannot wholly blot out the first remembrance of the first fond yearnings of children to their mothers.
Nothing can be more comforting to behold a soft and tender mother rising to the occasion as comforter and supporter of her husband amidst the bitter blast of adversity.
To all mothers, I often had occasions to have seen the fortitude with which mothers sustained the most overflowing reverses of misfortune. Those disasters, which can even break down the spirit of a man and prostrate him on the ground, seem to call forth all the energies of a mother and gives elevation of character that can go near to sublimity.
Attachment of a mother to her child, no fortune can change. No loss of influence, not even the loss of character can destroy. As the success of her children is her own, their dishonor is also hers and her heart will bleed for them instinctively.
Her tears will flow with their sorrow and her eyes will follow them while her soul goes absent; she always breathes her sigh of prayers for the welfare of her children.
As old age caught up with Mother, she stifled the secret agonies of her own bosom, strove to pour balm and consolation to her children, her grandchildren and dared each other to love one another dearly.
Like a withered oak or Benguet pine tree, Mother has reached the pinnacle of life God has allotted for her on this earth.
Change came over her. The bright luster on her face has somehow vanished yet the cheek smiles somehow fleeted on her face. Gemstone drops clung upon her eyes like dark verges and like dews upon flowers, buzzed her fair and tender cheek.
She was all sad, as she was lovely, like a lone songbird whose sweet-sounding notes have been stilled. The years have passed on and old age had taken its toll. She had knelt, wept and smiled again as her gentle spirit gently clung to the four words we know and spell as L-I-F-E. Of four word we also cling to.
Even in her moments of keenest suffering, Mother looked forward to the days of returning happiness — from the hospital she was confined – to her very own home at Dizon Subdivision barangay, Baguio City. She had with her a colored prospect and the mind and spirit buoyant with the thought of home.
But when the final struggle had commenced and she, knowing death will be the temporary conqueror of L-I-F-E again, how sublime was her peace of acceptance of her fate.
Ordinary, was my Mother, and like any ordinary mother, she was an ordinary stream of life. She originated from Samoki and Talubin municipalities of Mountain Province, yet that ordinary stream of life had proven good in the years given to her.
She had nurtured life and health to her children and watched as her children became streams of lives agreeable to the designs of the Creator.
One of my children, Atty. Brenner Bengwayan, fondly calls his Grandmother the “Spitfire Matriarch,” and which her grandchildren openly like. For Mother was simply that: she represented authority and leadership dynamics within the family and her authority stretched out to other kin.
All her grandchildren never believed death’s fast face wouldn’t touch Mother. But it did. And at the touch of dissolution, they bade their fond farewell. Heart-rending to witness children beholding their powerful emotions the memorials of their grandmother.
As for me, the son, the heart will swell, the eyes will weep silently and when I visit Mother’s closets where once I and Mother conversed together, I will find it the abode of solitude and desolation of heart.
When I look at the days to come, I will travel, lightened by the fact that Mother is happily treading with father — who had gone before her — the blissful grounds in the sky.
