May 11, 2008 (Mother's Day) - A highest possible score of 100. A classmate who got 98. And, a galling score of 78. After a long reporting stint in my EDL 261 I should have to bog down but bobbed up my mind before I went to rest. Voila! Everything went out dizzily from my mind that all I can remember before I fell to bed after arriving from a whole day class is that I was musing in the jeepney going to SM Cebu of my discomfort after getting 78. I wasn’t relieved of the fact that I did poorly in my Mid-Term I took last week. Enough! I told myself after scrambling all the receipts I had in my side pocket which only then I remembered that I went to the doctor yesterday morning for a checkup. It was then I remembered that I went out from my Mid-Term exam in Socio 220 to rush to a clinic on a high day due to scattering red spots. I was fourteen minutes late from 11:30’s docking of my Socio 220 but I needed to take my Mid-Term back. Thankful, my dear professor gave me an extension. I was in total crisis of everything yesterday, that I ended up answering only one question of two. I couldn’t put any critique on education. More, I was totally lost for the Filipino family question. I had overly been reading PCIJ's Robbed and Michael Tan’s A Reconfigured Filipino Family but I still hadn’t written something on my paper. Tabularaza visited me that day. What the heck! By next week, I’ll expect another overkilling of my grade, should I further, at stake is my GPA this trimester.

My bedtime rest was awakened, headset still attached to my ears, by an overtime evening news feed. Exactly, it was 8:43. My stomach began to grumble, forgotten that I had not eaten my supper, I hurried to have it but on my way to Lapu-Lapu City I happened to pass a group of people at the vicinity of Mc Donald. More and more were flocking, overheard that there was an ongoing hostage drama. Another? But this time there’s that sociologist George Ritzer’s coined word McDonaldization of hostage dramas. It’s something a new strategy or theme to consider after that (still) standoff hostage drama in Manila. Wonderment of the passing scene wasn’t that much for me but wandering was all over my head. But, I never forgot my menu that evening which included the usual 2 cups of rice (which still confuses my workmates why I am still that thin when I gobble more than the usual carbo) and steak. Water filled up the entire meal.

So many things occupied my mind. Alongside, I never forgot my side dish which was one in my birthday to-do list. It had been set sometimes the first quarter of this year that I should call my Mama at exactly 12am to be the first to greet Happy Mothers’ Day. Verily, I did call my Mama and greeted her another wishful motherly morning beyond her oblivious sleep affair. Her voice seemed concealed. I noticed that she was disturbed by the ring I gave her but she was happy, after all!

Past 12am. I was earbashing myself of not being able to sleep earlier. Monologue came in. I was struggling myself of the why and why-nots to bedtime. Suddenly, came another thought of the conversation I had with my Mama. I asked myself, “What’s beyond Mama’s voice?” To me, there was dryness in her voice. That dryness is symbolically a gutted moment of aging for women.

Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur, editor of Spiritual Woman, discreetly pointed out the reality of new motherhood crisis. As early as giving birth, a woman already experiences crisis in life. She said, a woman asks, “Who exactly am I now that I am a mother?” In her book, The Gift of Change, Marianne Williamson writes, “When a woman gives birth, two are born: a baby is born from the womb of its mother, and a woman is born from the womb of her former existence.” For a woman that’s quite interesting to know more.

We, children, are just too quiet to understand our mother’s feelings. Often, we don’t understand how they feel about things they see day by day as these change. I admit that this idea just happens to perk up in my interest after I gave my Mama a call. The ultimate anxiety a mother experiences in life is not instantly laid down. It’s not commonly seen. It may be relative. It may be conditioned by human circumstances. Along with the mother’s thrust of raising a child and family is that considerable lookout of the odds that might affect and threat family’s foundation. She has to protect everybody. As she begins to act maturely, she also understands the variety of a woman’s anxiety. That’s even more aggravating for an aging mother. I should say if there’s crisis for new mothers, there are also a lot more of this for aging mothers. That’s how I see crisis in my Mama which she can’t explain and express to us frontally. The new mother has crisis on how she will be able to respond and experiment home with a new life while an aging mother has crisis on how she could keep closely with her all the lives she gave birth. There is joy after a temporal crisis in a new mother because she can still see that joy in the eyes of her growing child. But for an aging mother, there is sadness after seeing her children becoming grown-ups, growing as men and women, who will eventually be leaving her for them to build a family of their own. You can’t tell her how she’d be able to look in your eyes as you were back when you were young because your presence is obstructed by your separation. She can’t see your eyes in that mileage distance. You can’t tell her that you’ll see her in December. Not on her birthday. Not until something happens to her badly. That’s reality. This is her crisis, again. This is where I always remember the times my Mama had to give me that selfless care. She’d always recall how worst cases made her stronger just like battling sleepless nights and attending my hysteria. Her crisis is always keeping her abreast much that her strength has been used up and her agony has been prolonged as care has been extended to us, her six children.

My day-to-day works often place me to forget my Mama. That’s my crisis, too. We both have crises but hers is, though not apparent, heartbreaking while mine is still manageable with every coping mechanism. In a given day, I could not live up to what I should do completely. For me, a day is not enough to end the scheduled daily tasks. I notice that for the past days I happened to text her only a few times, only when circumstances push me to do so. She’s been deprived of my simple hi and hello. I remember when I was inside the taxi going to a doctor for my check-up the other day, I found myself on the verge of losing for I was very sickly as if I could not move my body and I felt that high fever. With that condition I had, it was very rare that I got my cellphone and browsed through my phonebook to edit the name of my Mama and added ICE before her name. The moment gave me a recollection of the article I read just the past week that one common thing people often forget about upon leaving the house is knowing and identifying anybody in the family to contact with in case of emergency (ICE), and that's needed to be tucked in. That, I, too, decided to add the acronym. But why my Mama when all of us seven in the nuclear family have handy phones? It’s all because there’s something in mothers which is beyond doubting. It’s all because there are two welcoming arms which always embrace us, there are two ears which always hear us, two eyes which see us, and one heart which always feels the very least of what we feel for them.

When Mama is in crisis, too, I cannot help but only think of her as somebody I prepare for a future visit in an almost empty household. But just like you I never know when. She’s making the most of her time doing household chores just to forget the emptiness in a place which was once called home. She’d make herself busy attending small business just to let time pass to put pressure on to another barren days of her life. Though, we are not accountable for what we should do to them as they grow old but for them it’s a great joy in their hearts seeing you back and looking you straightly in your eyes. It pays off for a mother to hear the laughter back in a once childish year we had. Amidst crisis, they are still hopeful to bring good times back. Beyond all those skimpy lifestyle shift they have, in their hearts and minds they are longing the slimmest shadow of our presence, eager and just waiting for us all to say, “Welcome home, anak!”

My Mama knows she’s very special to me. She knows her children appreciate every little thing she does in the family and that's more than love. She knows that beyond the sickening letting-go we have to award her that coming back, in space and time. From her children and Papa, we wish her that lasting strength and vision to see us all one passing day.

To the MOMS and to your MOMS out there, say, HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY! to them. #