Had I not coaxed her to play “The House of the Dead” at Timezone in Alabang Town Center last Sunday, I wouldn’t discover that my mother was a sharp shooter. Inside a small enclosure that had a big screen, she comfortably sat on the black-cushioned chair as she held the blue toy gun with ease. When the game started, she aimed at the zombies who were ready to gnash her wits. She outwitted them all. She won. Game over.
Of all the shooting incidents I saw in my life — I’ve seen a few when I covered the police beat when I was starting my career in journalism in 1997 — the “encounter” between my Nanay and the zombies was by far the only pleasant incident I witnessed. It was an endearing scene, not at all violent. She swayed and ducked and screamed and laughed as she sprayed the zombies with bullets. The joy that registered on her face was priceless. Even if she was just playing a video game, the courage she showed in “felling the enemies” was indicative of her character.
Truth to tell, courage defines Nanay’s existence. She encountered zombies in her life — the menacing of all was called poverty. Because poverty was a tenacious enemy and she found it hard to attack it head on, she befriended it. She lived within her means, was never extravagant. She married a farmer and contented herself with what he could offer her. She was not known to ask for the moon. Perhaps because Nanay knew and felt she was, in my father’s eyes, his moon. And he was her sun. Together, they formed a universe. My four brothers and I became their stars. In our own universe, zombies would always attack in the form of illnesses. But Nanay, the zombie-slayer, fortified our existence.
Sure it was not easy growing up underprivileged. But my four brothers and I were privileged enough to be loved and cared for by our mother. Once, when I was about eight or nine years old, I was running a fever and there was no way that I could be brought to a hospital — we had no money. But having no resources was not a problem to my mother who always believed that there was a bigger God to every big zombie she encountered in her life. With her act of faith she slain the zombie. And I got healed.
The act of faith was the first lesson I learned from her. “Maniwala ka sa Diyos na ibibigay nya ang hihilingin mo (Believe that God will grant you your prayers),” she would always tell my brothers and me. Nanay never introduced us to Sunday church but she had her own deep sense of religiosity — a solid faith that ruled, and to this day still rules, her world.
More than a zombie-slayer, Nanay was a magician. If anyone of her five boys was not feeling well, she would give them “magic water.” In a rough-surfaced Nescafe glass in the ‘70s, I became a recipient of her magical deeds. Since I was sickly when I was a kid, I always got to enjoy her magic. “Abrakadabra, inumin mo ang tubig na ito at gagaling ka (Drink this water and you will be healed),” she would always say as she cove=red with her one hand a glass of water in front of me. She would give me “magical water” more than eight times a day and the following day I would feel okay. Early on in life, my mother unwittingly knew the benefits of water therapy. Looking back, I realized it was not her magic that cured me. There was no magic at all. It was her love that made me feel well and her love was more than magical.
She, too, was a wizard who dispelled rules of life. She wrote her teachings not on a parchment paper, instead scribbled them in our minds and hearts. Her rules became our practical guide to life, the moral compass that to this day beams in our hearts. Rule No. 1: Don’t steal. Return what you borrow. Rule No. 2: Don’t be ashamed that you are poor. Remain happy with who you are and what you have. Rule No. 3: Dream. People who dream have a bright future.
Her first two rules were very easy to execute. The third one needed some mentoring from someone. So, my mother who did not attain her dream to become a music teacher was the one who mentored me about dreaming. She told me to study hard. I did. She taught me to dream and indeed, I dreamed a dream. She explained to me that there would be stumbling blocks on my way to dreaming but she equipped me with her words of wisdom. She fought my battles many times when I was too young to defend my ambition from the zombies who wanted to steal my dreams. Yes, Nanay was already shooting zombies when I was a kid.
Just recently, she verbalized to me how much she missed my father who passed on in January last year. She would visit my father’s puntod in the cemetery quite often to sing to him his favorite kundiman songs — Anak Dalita, Bituing Marikit, Pakiusap and Sa Lumang Simbahan. Once she muttered at Tatay’s gravesite, “Dati-rati ako ang hinaharana mo. Ngayon ako na ang naghaharana sa iyo (Before you used to serenade me. Now, I’m the one serenading you).”
Because Nanay’s welfare is our ultimate concern, my brothers and I take the necessary effort to entertain her. One afternoon, out of the blue, we played the song O Maliwanag na Buwan, and one by one my four brothers and I danced with her in the porch of our humble home in Cabuyao. The narra tree in our garden seemed to rejoice with us as its little yellow-orange flowers pirouetted down to carpet the ground. Out of the ordinariness of the day, we created something extraordinary for her. Our merriment that mid-afternoon must have been very infectious and unadulterated that our happy mood invited our neighbors in Gulod to watch us in our revelry. The joy that flowed on my mother’s face that moment was so palpable that the creases on her face seemed obliterated. We knew that our love was the pill that would cure Nanay of her momentary loneliness. Thank God that, more than any medicine, our first-aid kit at home is bursting with love.
I once wrote that a mother’s heart is as open as the sky. It can take anything — joys and sadness, trials and triumphs. Challenges become opportunities when nurtured in a mother’s heart. More than that, in my mother’s heart resides a warrior who shoots zombies that threaten the dreams of her loved ones.
And yes, Nanay is a sharp shooter.
(Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers. For your new beginnings, please e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com or my.new.beginnings@gmail.com. You may want to follow me on Twitter @bum_tenorio. Have a blessed Sunday!)