Learning to appreciate my mom with ‘Love you Forever’

This Week’s Winner

Victoria Antoinette Alfaro Lat, 17, is taking up Management of Applied Chemistry at Ateneo. Her passions include "arts and crafts, designing, and personalizing everything and anything I can get my hands on!"

I usually love retreats, so it was particularly weird that I was in an exceptionally lousy mood the day I left for one last year. All the stress I had accumulated during the past several months was starting to manifest itself, and, unfortunately, the very first place it had chosen was my face. I was sporting a red, a-battalion-of-disgusting-cockroaches-feasted-on-me look – and it was all because of another heated argument my mom and I had the night before.

I was feeling crummy, annoyed, and deeply exasperated with her – like I have, on and off for months now, and I was being my mean, bratty self again. Even when she volunteered to bring me to the bus terminal to see me off, I still wasn’t ready to call it a truce, and I was silent throughout the entire ride.

I don’t think I was able to return the "I love you" she had shouted to me just before I slammed the door. Or, if I did, it was an automated response plus a mandatory peck on the cheek. I wasn’t mad exactly. It’s just that it’s never really easy hearing those three words from someone you haven’t exactly been on speaking terms with for the past months or so – especially when you’re already halfway through convincing yourself that it’s not true at all.

The moment I opened the short, brown envelope my mom had handed me before I hopped onto the bus, I wanted to cry. Inside was a thin, glossy blue book, with a picture of a smiling baby making a mess on the front cover. The words Love you Forever were written across the top in bold print. At first it seemed like a fairly harmless children’s book by Robert Munsch and Shiela McGraw, with big font and pretty illustrations that depicted the story of a mother and her child. But for the most part, it features the story of a little boy going through the phases of growing up – from being a newborn baby to being a toddler, a tween, a teen, and finally, a man. But the main story line is about the mother who saw him through all those years, and despite his saying bad words, flushing her watch down the toilet, wearing strange clothes, messing up the house, and never wanting to take a bath, she loves him just the same. And late at night when he is asleep, she’d sneak into his bedroom just to hold him in her arms, and while she rocks him gently, she’d sing: "I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be."

It was an oddly familiar story – and for some strange reason I was extremely affected by it. By the time I was through reading, the pages were already dappled, wet and wrinkly; the ink, practically smudged with a mixture of tears and snot. After staring at it for a good several minutes, I finally realized why. It was a story of my mom and me. She had written on the book: "It is, in sum, how you are to me and how you will always be."

I am a mommy’s girl, and anyone who knows me well enough knows that no one can make me cry the way my mom can, it doesn’t matter what the intent is. Of all the relationships you can ever have in your life, your relationship with your mother is probably the most delicate of all.

Like most teenagers, we have a love-hate relationship. We get on each other’s nerves, fight, and make up. It’s a dumb cycle that stresses the both of us out relentlessly, but I suppose it’s part of growing up.

Usually the arguments my mom and I have revolve around her being too protective of me. Sure, every once in a while she allows me independence, nudging me towards the outside world, empowering me to grow on my own as an individual and as an adult. But just when I’m starting to get the hang of things and everything begins to make sense to me, she just as quickly pulls me right back. It’s a confusing tug-of-war but I’ve also realized that it’s a struggle for her too.

I suppose it never is easy for a mother to let go of her child especially her youngest. When my mom looks at me, she still sees a fat, little baby and as the book tells it: "For as long as she’s living, her baby I’ll be."

Love You Forever is a celebration of the enduring nature of a parent’s love. It’s a light and easy read, the kind you’re never too old for, the kind you won’t mind reading again and again – perhaps because it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, no matter what age you are.

It captures the full essence of what being a parent is all about, and articulates this beautiful message perfectly. In only 757 words, it enables you to understand the most misunderstood people in your life, teaches you to love and appreciate what you normally take for granted or resent, and most importantly, makes you reflect and re-evaluate the kind of love that you give back to them.

My mom couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate time to give it to me. And she couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate book. Through it is only 15 pages, I still leaf through it every once in a while, mostly after another one of our melodramatic fights. It reminds me of the simple fact I almost always forget: my mom loves me. And that’s really all there is to it.

If there’s one thing the book has made clear, it’s that a mother will always be a mother. Mine has always loved me selflessly, with no conditions and no restraints.

It’s ironic that as I’m writing this she’s acting up once again and being her usual annoying self. But as I heave a sigh, roll my eyes, and exchange here-we-go-again glances with my sister, I also remember that she’s my mommy. And no matter how much she drives me crazy sometimes, it’s just like the all grown-up kid in the storybook sang to his mommy:

I’ll love her forever,

I’ll like her for always,

As long as I’m living

My Mommy she’ll be.