When I was in grade school, the minute I alighted from the school bus, I would only ask for one thing: Ang Mommy ko?
“Ang Mommy ko, nasaan?” were the words that would flow from my lips the minute the helper would open the gate to our home. It was a tender question, yet one also said in breathless excitement. After a long day in school and on the road, there was only one safe haven: Mommy.
My mother Sonia Reyes Mayor was reared the old-fashioned way by a stern-yet-loving father and a nurturing mother. She wasn’t demonstrative, wasn’t the “touchy-feely” type, at least to me, her firstborn, only 23 years younger than she is. But her language of love was her presence. Constant as the oxygen I breathed. Whether it was to braid my hair and put a ribbon on it; to help me with my homework; to cook my baon during field trips; to help sew my costume during school activities, Mommy was always present. And she would never miss a PTA meeting, except perhaps when she had just given birth to my two younger sisters. She was never sick! Never down with the flu or headaches.
Thus, just having her there, at home, within eyesight was already safe harbor for me. When I was in Grade Four, we moved from Iloilo City to Metro Manila, where we are originally from, and I was transferred from the Assumption Convent in Iloilo to Assumption Herran. We lived in Quezon City, so even without traffic in the ‘70s, it was still a long way home.
And Mom would be waiting, with merienda already prepared for us. She wasn’t a “Tiger mom,” but modesty aside, all her daughters are accomplished women who make her, and made our late beloved dad Frank, proud. She allowed us to watch TV even while doing our homework, allowed us to watch Falcon Crest or Dynasty on Sunday nights even if the next day was the start of the school week. When Dad would call her attention to it, she would chide him, “Tingnan mo naman ‘yung grades ng mga anak mo, ang tataas.” One rare time I got a bear hug from her was the first time I topped the class in Assumption Herran. I remember I was going up the stairs and she was waiting at the top.
“Mommy, guess what number in class I am?” I asked her. I was a new student, a promdi kumbaga.
“Number Three?” she said, holding her breath for my answer.
“Number One!” I said. She rushed down the few steps to where I stood, arms outstretched and hugged me. Priceless moment.
At the crack of dawn, she would wake up, rouse us from sleep and prepare a huge glass of Klim or Nido for my sister and me to share, in separate glasses, of course. The night before, she would instruct our helper to make sure our plaid skirt and sailor blouse were on a hanger on the knob of our closets, our neckties, socks and handkerchief in a neat pile on a table.
She would prepare a lunch box for us that made eyes pop because she put each snack, viand and dessert in different Tupperware containers. Our lunchbox was bursting at the seams. She would trim off the crust from the bread and make two-decker sandwiches for us. I remember my classmate Tweety telling me, “Why don’t you make life easier for your Mom and eat the crust?” I shrugged. I never asked Mommy to trim off the crust from our sandwiches. She just went the extra mile (in this case, millimeter) to show her love. Once, when someone was looking for the Mayor sisters in our school bus, the driver innocently asked, “Sino, ‘yung maraming baon?” Later on, she was able to streamline the containers of our delicious baon, but my sister and I always held that distinction. Mommy never wanted us to go to battle unarmed!
Mommy sent us off in the morning, and was always there for us when we went home, tired, but excited to share with her what went on during our day, especially when Assumption moved to a new campus in Antipolo. Dad came home from work a little later.
The sun rose and set with Mommy by our side. It was a rare privilege, a gift. I made sure that when I became a mother myself, I always sent my son Chino off to school, no matter how late my night was.
***
Lessons from Mommy:
1. Always keep your chin up. In good times and in bad, put on not only a brave face but a happy and made-up one, hair well-coiffed and lips all glossed-up.
2. Don’t sweat the “big” stuff. Sometimes, the big stuff is actually puny. If the pressure to have high grades or get that coveted win is already like a boulder on your shoulders, deflate the boulder. Mom would relate stories of her own classmates who were similarly pressured, and she would say, stress is normal. But when your health or happiness suffers, let the pressure go. Let it go. Her reassurances turned boulders into cotton candy. Somehow, when the pressure eased, and knowing she would be there whether we aced or not the exam, the promotion or whatever, the goal became a win.
3. Honor your parents. She would always tell us that when she was caring for her ailing mother, Jovita, the latter would tell her, “Your children will treat you with the same kindness you have shown me.”
4. A woman’s place is beside her husband. She traveled to and made a happy home for Dad wherever he was posted: Iloilo for five years, Legazpi City in Albay for a year, Manila, and Anaheim, California for 17 years, till the day Dad passed away. My Mom has the gift of being loved by her neighbors. To this day, some of her dearest friends (like Didit Castro) are former neighbors.
5. A good education will get you far in life. You will wear confidence like a second skin. My parents made great sacrifices to give my sisters and me the best education they could afford. My Mom was an 11-year-old girl from Bongabon, Oriental Mindoro when her father Igmedio enrolled her at the St. Scholastica’s College in Manila for high school. St. Scholastica’s, to my mom, was not only a new school, but a new home. She was a boarder for four years in the convent’s beautiful Leon Guinto campus. Her best friends like Marcia Capinpin Jesena, Ludy Borlongan Zaldivar and the late Angge Alday Soriano were her classmates at St. Scho. Mom once told me that during happy school reunions, she would look to the heavens and say, “Thank you Tatay for sending me to St. Scho.” (She became an “honorary” fervent Assumptionista later on because she sent all her daughters to Assumption, as destiny willed it. There was no St. Scho in Iloilo where I first went to school, that’s why.) From St. Scho, Mom took up Business Administration at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. This was in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, when co-eds from convent schools were a rarity. Mommy still proudly wears that distinction on her sleeve, and all four of her daughters followed in her footsteps and went to UP as well.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mommy. Thank you for the most precious gift of your presence, then, now and always. *