When I was growing up, the words “mommy” and “mama” did not mean the same thing and did not refer to the same person. The former meant my mother and the later, my mother’s mother—my grandma. Why that was, I do not know. I never asked. It was simply the way it was. I had a lola, my paternal grandmother, and my mama, my maternal grandmother. I just naturally assumed that those were their names. When I figured out it wasn’t, it had become such a habit that I didn’t want to break it. Besides it was so much easier to have just one lola and one mama and one mommy. I always knew which one was which.
But I wasn’t the only person who called my mama, mama. It was quite natural that my sisters and my first cousins would call her mama, too. But strangely, everyone on my grandmother’s side of the family calls her that as well, or some variation of it. And stranger still, everyone on my grandfather’s side of the family addresses her that way too. So she is mama, mama Luching, or mommy Luching (But apparently, she is everybody’s mother.)
As I did not know my grandmother when she was young, I often wonder if the title came before the quality or if the quality brought about the title. I would like to think that they found each other. That the name ‘mama’ and her mothering nature came together in one of those providential and cosmic moments that make this world so mysteriously precise. That one molded the other in as much as the other shaped the one. And now the two of them, my grandmother and her title are eternally fused together. For the most beautiful (and sometimes the most painful) thing about motherhood is that it is a relationship that begins but never ends.
And if that is the case, my mama has had plenty of beginnings. She has, to date, three children, 10 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren. But I am certain, my mama has mothered more than that. For she is as kind a mother to my father as she is to my mother. And I am pretty certain that my aunt (who married my mother’s brother) and my uncle (who married my mother’s sister) can say the same. But then, I have other aunts and uncles, other relatives, as well, who can claim the same sort of kinship with her.
There is something in my grandmother that makes people want to adopt her as a mother. She is always gentle and caring and yet she is the first person people come to when they need to be defended. She can be quite charming and graceful when she wants to be. And quite fierce, too, when she needs to be. She is constantly fretting that people have not eaten enough or have not rested enough. But more importantly, she has an aura about her that makes anyone feel that she will never refrain from caring for anyone in need. And perhaps that is why people have kept coming to her all these years.
Today, she is turning 92. And as she is not as strong as she used to be, she needs fulltime care. But she has not stopped becoming a mother. When I come home from school, she is there to welcome me as though I was the highlight of her day. (She makes everyone feel this way actually.) When I complain that I am tired, she will offer to help me check my papers. (I’m so tempted to take her up on her offer but I never do.) Sometimes too, she will insist on dropping me off at night school. (I think I may be the only graduate student whose grandmother still drops her off!) And she continues to make it a point to return every kiss and every “I-love-you” no matter how tired and sleepy she is. Now, at 92, my mama has forgotten a lot of things but she has not forgotten what it means to give selflessly and continually. Because that is what mamas do. That is who mamas are. At least, that’s who my mama is.