WE WERE seven senior women who declared “Time out!” from domestic duties and social commitments to ponder our journey, to remember the past, and feel more keenly alive in the present.
We planned a four-day retreat by the sea, with no gurus to learn from except one another. After all, our friendships went back over 50 years and we longed to profit from each one’s wisdom.
Resolutely, we also agreed to confront what awaits us in the not too distant future—the business of death and dying. No one protested it was morbid. All practical homemakers and career women, we knew the time to prepare living wills and instructions for wakes and funerals was now, while we had our wits and sense of humor about us.
Three were widows and knew all about transitions. All had lost their parents except for Bella, whose mom was still sharp at 96.
A deep impulse moved Edwina: “Can we also talk about our moms? I miss my mom,” this 67-year-old cried out plaintively.
Valiant women
We all missed our moms! It felt so right to acknowledge who those valiant women were, and how they had shaped the wives, mothers and grandmothers that we had become.
“Everyone bring a picture of your mom,” Didi, a psychotherapist, suggested. At our beach destination, we created an altar to hold the sacred objects we had brought. We draped it with tribal cloths and trimmed it with leaves and flowers, candles and incense. Along the front we arranged the pictures of our moms till it looked like a heroines’ gallery.
Our moms were very much a part of our first round of sharing: the names they chose for us, who we were named for, and how our names had influenced our self-image. With much laughter we divulged our second or third baptismal names—rather like skeletons we had kept in closets for decades—names plucked from the calendar or picked up from the literature of the day: dramatic like Magdalena, medieval like Casimira, romantic like Aleta.
Eternal moment
Crossing the threshold to our moms’ worlds of reality and imagination made us eager to talk about them. Each of us showed off her mom’s picture and narrated her version of her mom’s life story.
How lovely she was as at that eternal moment: as a high-school graduate of 16, or a bride of 22, or a young mother with her baby daughter, or a matriarch surrounded by her descendants.
A whole generation of women born in the first quarter of the 20th century became real to us. They were their own persons before we were born: products of their time, family circumstances, and the choices they made. Recalling how they had lived through the horrors of war and struggled with their own life challenges filled us with love and compassion. (How would we, in our turn, be looked upon? What permutations of our own stories would go down in family myth and legend?)
Healing
Soon it became apparent that no matter how successfully we have navigated our adult lives, healing our relationship with our mom continues even at this stage of life.
How can we not love-resent the only person we were connected with from our first breath, and who knew our every flaw and passion?
Edwina choked up as she recalled how angry she had been with her mom, a brilliant lawyer and intellectual, for losing her will to live after their dad died.
Elyn, champion lola with 17 grandchildren, always felt she was a big disappointment to her mom, who had juggled homemaking with an engrossing media career.
Chit’s mom was a strong woman who masterfully steered the family business, drawing Chit more toward her wise and gentle dad. Didi and Bella, both only daughters, had intense differences with their moms, especially in their growing-up years.
Daddy’s girl Bella still gets scolded by her mom when she dares appear in public in less-than-glamorous form.
Larger than life loomed Pines’ mother Dona Segundina, whose marvelous well-documented biography teemed with himala. After 18 years of childlessness, she bore four children through her devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the Hesus Nazareno in Quiapo.
The shortest and saddest story of all was that of my mom, who died in a car accident at the age of 46. How we, her nine bereft children, managed to carry on without her and create our own happiness will remain for me one of the mysteries of human existence.
Letting go
When all was said and done, we could offer our moms only admiration, forgiveness and gratitude. In that circle of trust we had shared the bitter and the sweet, the remorse and the acceptance—and let go. In meditative silence we took responsibility for our lives. Now it was time to give birth to ourselves.
Like children we made our way to the water, joining hands. Each one in turn was gently cradled in another’s arms, and lovingly rocked in the water. Didi sang her favorite Ilocano lullaby. “Dungdung wen kanto unay unay…” (“I will cherish you…”) her clear and tender voice traveling over the ripples, soothing our baby souls.
What utter peace to float in the waters of Mother Nature’s womb!
Time enough in the remaining two days to figure out our habilin and compose our obituaries. Consciously owning the paths we have taken—whether we conformed to tradition or ventured into uncharted territory—is a sacred duty to our loved ones and to ourselves.
As our mothers were blessings to us, we aspire to be blessings to our children. Seamlessly, life and death enfold each other, and the generations march on.
Mother’s Day often falls on May 12, the birthday of Mariel’s mom, Paciencia David Nepomuceno (1924-1970).
