A tribute to my mother

I still vividly remember when I was 14 years old, I got a dressing down from my mother Editha. Although I can no longer remember her words, our house helper reported me to my mom after she found bus tickets thrown outside my room’s window.

A day before, I traveled alone to Mantayupan Falls in Barili at the southwestern side of Cebu. I hopped on a bus, relying on a mental map of the succession of towns along the way, memorized and counted off as referenced from a map of Cebu that has always been in my room and alighted when I reached my destination. It was my first time to visit that place and the first time I’ve actually seen a waterfall albeit with a low volume of water, almost dried up.

Although my mother is not as well traveled as compared to me and my father, during her childhood, she used to accompany my lolo (grandfather) aboard his light blue Impala with its flared behind, hard and uncomfortable seats and wide body, off to some places in Cebu for business. She married a taxi driver from Mindanao who soon after his maritime studies would eventually sail the world, with my mother, the housewife, left at home in Cebu for months at a time over the span of more than three decades, raising three children. The farthest she has gone to is Singapore and just a few places in the country.

On the other hand, I had my college education in Metro Manila and had to uproot myself from Cebu only to return during Christmas and summer vacations. Except for a brief two years of working in my home province, I relocated to Mindanao and eventually to Metro Manila to work and it’s only from time to time that I go home to Cebu.

 But that is my mother and I think loving mothers always do that.