Ma in her late teens.

 

Ma (2009).

My mom is not the perfect mom (she once left giblets [still wrapped in plastic] inside the cavity of the chicken she had roasted and given away), but neither am I the perfect daughter and in both our imperfections I would like to believe that my mother and I have grown to love and respect each other.

I was not my mom’s first child. I actually followed a child (they said it was a boy) that my mother was not able to carry full term. So this makes me a Ghost Child or a “child born after the death of the first child.” I am both firstborn and middle born and true enough I exhibit the characteristics of both.

The older I get, the more I get to know my mother, the better I appreciate her. My mother was not a very strong presence when I was young. In fact, it was my grandmother who dominated my life. In my mom’s evenness of character, gentle smiles, and self-effacing ways, she somehow managed to semi-fade away. But, I knew she was there–a very hardworking woman and tough, in her own unique way.

Of course there were times when I hated and resented my mother for sundry reasons, especially when I was a teenager and she would say no when I wanted her to say yes. I was not an easy child to raise–I was willful, opinionated, an almost tomboy (I climbed trees, jumped walls, would go galivanting around Mandaluyong with my bestfriend Paul, played in the dirt, smelled of the sun, skateboarded, got into fistfights, etc.) and for this I have to give my mother props because, after all, I seem to have turned out okay. My sister did, as well. 

So, Mom, thank you for all that you are: absentminded, quirky, independent, funny, strong, accepting, never nagging, never manipulative, never bitchy, never made sumbat, super understanding, someone who taught my sister and I to love and not compete with each other, often corny, most of the times hilarious with a brand of comedy that is all your own, super bait according to everyone who knows you, sometimes makulit, sometimes pa-cute, pero pretty pa rin kahit 61 na. Not bad, di ba? 

You’re not the perfect mom, we’re not perfect daughters, either (di ba dream child mo nga si Sharon Cuneta?), but you love us and we love you and love is the only thing that matters anyway.

Sis. and Ma (in Sentro to celebrate her b'day in Apr.)