Happy Mothers Day! With my readers’ indulgence, I’ve written a letter to my daughter, she who made me a first-time mother and since then life has never been the same.
Dearest Ging,
Like my own mom, I was given only one daughter, you, Gia—
my very own Gianna banana, though I still call you, Ging. First-time parents usually hoped for a boy, because it is through them that the family name is kept alive for generations. So much so that even in the delivery room, they announced, ‘it’s a boy!’ more felicitously.
But to a first-time Mom, gender didn’t matter a whit. I welcomed all 8.4 pounds of you, and after bringing you home, kept you in bed with me, as I breast-fed you for three months. Apparently that was the limit to my endurance because after three months of not sleeping I wasn’t waking up to your crying anymore.
It could have been sheer exhaustion but for your sake, I had to get a yaya, someone I thought I could avoid, resolved as I was to take care of you myself. I had also failed in my other valiant stand of foregoing anesthesia and going natural at your birth. Did you hear me yelling almost as soon as contractions began, not for your Dad nor for my Mom, but for “Anesthesia!” Even the dentist had not given me that kind of pain!
Each time I gave birth to your three brothers after you, I’d secretly smile snug in the knowledge I already had you. If I sometimes wondered how it would have been if I had another daughter, it was not because I wanted another, but out of mere curiosity.
Posthumous understanding
You were so not like me, but then I was so different from my own mom, too. I wonder why God made us different from our Moms. It’s only now in old age that I’m beginning to show signs that I’m becoming like mine in some ways. And whenever I recognize her in some of my actions, tender feelings and posthumous understanding well-up inside me.
Much time has passed and there’s no denying I’ve become old and you’re not as young as you used to be. After your youngest enters college in June, all three of your children will be in college. I’ll never forget how stunned I was, after your wedding reception, as I waited for you to come home with me, only to realize that you weren’t.
We’ve gone through difficult times but I’m proud to say, that we’ve had more laughing sessions than tear jerkers. The reversal of roles between us is becoming more obvious, that I often catch myself wondering when and how you got so smart. But surely my superior years have taught me a thing or two, which I mean to impart to you before I go.
Remember, you make your own luck. So much of the conditions of life depends on your attitude toward life in general and what it brings or doesn’t. Don’t ever play the blame game, it causes constipation which I suffered for years.
You have the power to choose how to take life. At all times, you are in total control of you attitude toward any given situation that may arise in your life, but I’m afraid, of not much else.
Please work your way toward making sure gratitude is your eventual reaction to anything even if it’ll take some time. Being grateful to God first and foremost should be easy enough but I dare say, to your Dad and me also for the gift of life and the beautiful circumstances of your birth. You may not realize or believe it, but your own happiness and material prosperity depend on it. Trust me on this one, please. Best you show gratitude at every opportunity, in deeds, never mind the words, they will come unbidden from a truly grateful heart at the right time.
In the end, you will realize everything that has happened to you has been a blessing, although often it comes well-disguised and you may not think so at first. Believing in “No hay mal que por bien no venga” has kept me positive and hopeful, knowing that eventually good comes out of everything. By now, you must have noticed how happy and free from want I am now in my old age, even if I don’t have everything.
Although it’s true I will leave you in a world I myself barely recognize that you may have to find your own way of surviving and thriving in this ever-changing world. But some things never change; there is a constant God who cares and loves you far more than we can ever fathom, much less, fully appreciate. Remember always that you are a child of God; as long as you act like one in thought, word and deed, and you won’t go wrong.
It may sound like it, but this is in no way a farewell letter; on the contrary, it’s the beginning of yet another ring in an aging tree bark to mark the 55th year of our unique bond as mother and daughter, with daughters of your own.
Here’s to motherhood and the daughters who make it worth while.