Give me some answers
May 20, 2006 | 12:00am
I light a candle.
It is my father’s 86th birthday, but he passed away 61 years ago. I never knew him really, but I miss him still. I notice that as I grow older, I miss him even more. It is his loss that has caused such a mess in my love life and such success in my professional life. All that because I did not know my father, who was taken from me and killed by the Japanese less than 24 hours before Manila was liberated. I lost him at the eleventh hour of the war. Every year that I think of him, I mourn more. This year, I have a different reason for mourning.
Pappy, that’s what Mom said I would have called you. Pappy, Mommy is different now. I remember her when I was younger. She was so tall, proud, beautiful. She knew how to have fun and her laughter was always ringing around me. Next to her I felt like a shy little girl, always in awe, always afraid of her mother. So I grew up to be different. She was frivolous, a very competent flirt. I did not know how to flirt, at least not as well as she did. I remember when Risa, my eldest daughter, turned 13. She felt so beautiful and Mommy was so annoyed with her.
We were at a hotel. Risa and Mom were bickering. Risa was boasting about her looks. Mommy was giving her snide smiles. "You don’t think so?" Risa lashed. "Well, let’s you, Mommy, and I go down to the bar right now and see who picks up a man first," Risa said, and I immediately panicked. "No, Risa, no," I interjected, "don’t do that. Mamoo will beat both of us hands down."
Even now I laugh. We were funny. I called my mother Mommy. The children called her Mamoo. It all began with my stepfather Max, who wanted my children to call him Papoo, Turkish for grandfather. They did and immediately began to call my mother Mamoo instead of Lola.
Another memory flashes. I am visiting her in Phoenix, Arizona, where she lived with Max. Phoenix is smoldering hot and I was always dying for ice cream. One afternoon, we were having ice cream at an al fresco restaurant when she suddenly leaned over and said, "See the man?" she gestured with her eyes. "He likes you. Smile at him."
"What for?" I asked. I was visiting her after I had been to the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, the head office in New York, my client’s headquarters at Atlanta for training. I felt professionally successful.
"He will come and pay for our ice cream and make friends," she said, smiling, her eyes sparkling.
"I will pay for our ice cream," I said.
"You’re no fun at all," she said.
How many years ago was that, Pappy? Around 25 I think. How she has changed! It must have begun 11 years ago. One Saturday morning, I’m reading the newspapers when she came downstairs in a rage and told me she could not get along with my daughter. She wanted her thrown out of the house or she was leaving. This took me totally by surprise. I asked my daughter what happened, nothing had happened. Then I asked my uncle for help, asked him if he thought she had early Alzheimer’s. He said she just craved for affection. Now I know I was right. It was early Alzheimer’s to suddenly invent a crisis and carry it to an extreme.
How the years have passed, Pappy. Now I know she has Alzheimer’s disease, level 6. It goes on to level 7. She still speaks well, but she doesn’t make sense. She knows me as her daughter, but she calls me Mommy or Doña, Spanish for "boss," I guess. Whenever she looks at me, I can read on her face intense dislike. I am her only child, but she does not love me any more. I visited her with my son. She looked at him with so much love. She called him "pretty," he with the obvious beginning of a beard. She called him pretty. She stuck her fingers in her mouth to show us how her false teeth worked. Pappy, she literally broke my heart again. Every time I see her, my heart falls into a thousand pieces and I have to glue it back together again.
I put her in The Noli Center, Pappy, a home for Alzheimer’s patients. I could not check her in myself because she would not get in the car with me. She has been there a month and I can tell she is happier than when she was with me. I met two young ladies whose mothers also have Alzheimer’s. They have a different doctor who seems to pacify their patients with proper drugs. I ask myself would mother be better off with more drugs? Maybe but ...
I don’t know any more, Pappy. Please help me find some answers. It is your birthday. You would have been 86. I know now you would not be happy seeing Mommy like this. So, I just light this candle and keep it lit to celebrate your birthday and to ask you for answers. Please, Pappy, give me some answers.
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It is my father’s 86th birthday, but he passed away 61 years ago. I never knew him really, but I miss him still. I notice that as I grow older, I miss him even more. It is his loss that has caused such a mess in my love life and such success in my professional life. All that because I did not know my father, who was taken from me and killed by the Japanese less than 24 hours before Manila was liberated. I lost him at the eleventh hour of the war. Every year that I think of him, I mourn more. This year, I have a different reason for mourning.
Pappy, that’s what Mom said I would have called you. Pappy, Mommy is different now. I remember her when I was younger. She was so tall, proud, beautiful. She knew how to have fun and her laughter was always ringing around me. Next to her I felt like a shy little girl, always in awe, always afraid of her mother. So I grew up to be different. She was frivolous, a very competent flirt. I did not know how to flirt, at least not as well as she did. I remember when Risa, my eldest daughter, turned 13. She felt so beautiful and Mommy was so annoyed with her.
We were at a hotel. Risa and Mom were bickering. Risa was boasting about her looks. Mommy was giving her snide smiles. "You don’t think so?" Risa lashed. "Well, let’s you, Mommy, and I go down to the bar right now and see who picks up a man first," Risa said, and I immediately panicked. "No, Risa, no," I interjected, "don’t do that. Mamoo will beat both of us hands down."
Even now I laugh. We were funny. I called my mother Mommy. The children called her Mamoo. It all began with my stepfather Max, who wanted my children to call him Papoo, Turkish for grandfather. They did and immediately began to call my mother Mamoo instead of Lola.
Another memory flashes. I am visiting her in Phoenix, Arizona, where she lived with Max. Phoenix is smoldering hot and I was always dying for ice cream. One afternoon, we were having ice cream at an al fresco restaurant when she suddenly leaned over and said, "See the man?" she gestured with her eyes. "He likes you. Smile at him."
"What for?" I asked. I was visiting her after I had been to the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, the head office in New York, my client’s headquarters at Atlanta for training. I felt professionally successful.
"He will come and pay for our ice cream and make friends," she said, smiling, her eyes sparkling.
"I will pay for our ice cream," I said.
"You’re no fun at all," she said.
How many years ago was that, Pappy? Around 25 I think. How she has changed! It must have begun 11 years ago. One Saturday morning, I’m reading the newspapers when she came downstairs in a rage and told me she could not get along with my daughter. She wanted her thrown out of the house or she was leaving. This took me totally by surprise. I asked my daughter what happened, nothing had happened. Then I asked my uncle for help, asked him if he thought she had early Alzheimer’s. He said she just craved for affection. Now I know I was right. It was early Alzheimer’s to suddenly invent a crisis and carry it to an extreme.
How the years have passed, Pappy. Now I know she has Alzheimer’s disease, level 6. It goes on to level 7. She still speaks well, but she doesn’t make sense. She knows me as her daughter, but she calls me Mommy or Doña, Spanish for "boss," I guess. Whenever she looks at me, I can read on her face intense dislike. I am her only child, but she does not love me any more. I visited her with my son. She looked at him with so much love. She called him "pretty," he with the obvious beginning of a beard. She called him pretty. She stuck her fingers in her mouth to show us how her false teeth worked. Pappy, she literally broke my heart again. Every time I see her, my heart falls into a thousand pieces and I have to glue it back together again.
I put her in The Noli Center, Pappy, a home for Alzheimer’s patients. I could not check her in myself because she would not get in the car with me. She has been there a month and I can tell she is happier than when she was with me. I met two young ladies whose mothers also have Alzheimer’s. They have a different doctor who seems to pacify their patients with proper drugs. I ask myself would mother be better off with more drugs? Maybe but ...
I don’t know any more, Pappy. Please help me find some answers. It is your birthday. You would have been 86. I know now you would not be happy seeing Mommy like this. So, I just light this candle and keep it lit to celebrate your birthday and to ask you for answers. Please, Pappy, give me some answers.
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