Consoling feedback after 'Yuletide without Mom'

My essay "Yuletide without Mom" came out in yesterday's Highblood section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. I received feedback in my email and in text messages. Some friends who I haven't been in touch with in awhile were surprised to learn Mom had passed away. I also learned of recent deaths in their families.

First to respond was my kumpare (godfather to my youngest daughter Ida), the writer Amadis Ma. Guerrero. He texted early yesterday: "A moving tribute to Mommy Lolarga was we at Raya (our former office) called her. She was our Mommy, too!"

From painter-actor Ivi Avellana Cosio (daughter of National Artists Lamberto and Daisy Avellana) came a longer message that cried to be shared with those who are grieving: "My dearest Babeth, our deepest condolences on your Mom's passing. A special hug for you and your youngest sister with whom I truly empathize. My Mom passed way (also in May) of 2013 on Mother's Day, a few days before my birthday. In December, my older daughter insisted we celebrate the first Christmas without Mama in Beijing with her and her family. It was so different that it helped to get us through such a painful time. But back in Manila, same same. I still cry when I think of her, or my Papa who left us in 1991, or my favorite brother in 2011, or my grandparents who passed away when I was much much younger. Grief is really so personal and different for each one. And I truly believe no one has a right to tell you how, when, or how long to grieve. Also, no such thing as 'getting over it'. You don't, well-meaning friends notwithstanding. You just learn how to cope with it one day at a time. And there will be good days and bad days. That being said, I wish you and yours a better New Year in every way. Tama si Helen Mirren. Much love from us."

Smiling grandmother with grandchildren Ida and Kimi Fernandez and Carlo Trinidad (foreground) several Christmases ago

“Would you rather I clean the house or write a poem? A poem lasts.”—my Mom

“I want to write poems instead of notes, but each ending is a death,
and I cannot handle the finish of words.”—Renée E. D’Aoust in her essay “Gratitude is my Terrain: Maybe”

This time of the year last year, she had just been discharged after a prolonged hospital stay. There was no exact term for what was ailing her, but it was enough for my siblings and me to have her home for the holidays. She missed reunion parties with her amigas and favorite nephew. We thought she would rally and recover in the new year.

But as actor Helen Mirren put it succinctly in summarizing the year 2016, “I think we can all agree that 2016 has been a big pile of sh*t.” It was the year when Mom’s worst fears about the betrayal of her body came true. We, along with hired caregivers, took turns cleaning her up after a “lapse.” Never could I erase from memory the helpless, pained look on Mom’s face every time this happened. I could sense that to her it was the ultimate humbling, and her look carried an apology with it.

Even if I tried to humor her when I tidied her up, the smile that used to light up our house was gone. That smile was the most eulogized part of her on the last day of her wake. Writer Efren Yambot told of how he was welcomed to the small feasts Mom prepared for her Manila Bankers Life colleagues by her smile. It encouraged him to return to similar occasions she hosted even if it meant covering miles to get to the office. When my Singapore-based daughter Ida would come home, it was Mom’s smile that greeted her first.

This Christmas my husband ordered chicken galantina from two sources to replace the irreplaceable—Mom’s yearly supply of morcon. He once had a meal at a restaurant in San Fernando, Pampanga, that boasted of the best morcon. He even had a beef roulade wrapped to take home. But his verdict was it was close to the taste of dog food and couldn’t approximate Mom’s morcon.

His assistant then, a recipient of Mom’s largesse, used to say that even only the sauce of the morcon sufficed for a meal. That was how good it was: We would ladle leftover sauce on a steaming mound of white rice when the meat roll was gone. Nothing was wasted.

A sister and some cousins were able to observe Mom in the act of preparing morcon, but even if it is ever replicated, the matriarch-cook who ruled over the kitchen and the rest of our house isn’t there to pronounce judgment on another’s take on her dish.

Mom with her five daughters

It isn’t just her dishes that we miss. Nightly the youngest of my four sisters weeps from the pain of the loss. Recently, she suffered chest constrictions and had to take herself to the hospital emergency room because of the stress of prolonged grieving (Mom died last May). Despite our assurances to her that Mom is at peace, she still isn’t prepared to go to the next level of the stages of grief and loss according to Elizabeth Kubler Ross (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance). Grief counseling has been advised, but it is up to her if she will take it.

To sort of pierce through the cloud of sorrow hovering over the house, I right away volunteered to host Christmas carolers from my Grade 11 class. The sound of young voices, the guitar strummed by a fellow teacher, makeshift maracas and drums brought the tidings of comfort and joy straight to our hearts.

Although my sisters and I didn’t prepare anything homemade from our kitchen (we cannot hold a candle to our mother, cooking-wise), the store-bought pancit, roast chicken and mini siopao were wiped out by bottomless adolescent appetites. I truly felt Mom’s spirit approving.

To those having a hard time coping with the holiday frenzy because of mourning that cannot be kept at bay, keep saying “This, too, shall pass” and leave some space for the occasional joy to surprise you.

Eating away my grief

"In existence, I think one’s mother is, generally speaking, the strangest, most unpredictable and elusive person one meets." — Marguerite Duras

Gliceria Yatco Dula in 1946

Mommy and I didn’t have the most buoyantly cheerful of mother-daughter relationships. But whatever differences we had, things were always patched up by food, especially food prepared and cooked by her.

Since she died last May, I’ve dealt with her absence by filling it with food. Not just any kind of food but the kind that reminded me of what she used to serve the family on regular days and special occasions—humba, menudo, mechado, kare-kare, callos, adobo.

Because I still, by choice, don’t cook, I sought out the food of my childhood and youth in various restaurants in the resto hub that Barangay Kapitolyo in Pasig has become.

What put a halt to my overindulgence (dining alone in restaurants, even enjoying a buffet lunch by my lonesome) was a case of gastroenteritis and severe dehydration that landed me in the hospital.

My creatinine level shot up to the hundreds, my kidneys were doing only 24 percent of their function.

The doctors and medicines were able to turn the numbers around to normal in 24 hours during which I did a thorough examination of conscience. Certain realizations surfaced while I was flat on my back with an IV drip attached to my arm.

“Was it possible that I might be expressing my grief by overeating?” I asked my doctor.

She said it was, citing her own experience. When her own father died, her family made it a Sunday ritual to visit the grave, then go out for lunch every week for a year. Then they noticed they were all putting on weight and they decided to stop and just have monthly reunions.

I envied my sisters who could express their grief through copious tears shed when certain memories of Mommy were triggered—finding Mom’s hairband, preparing her clothes for giving away to charity (I kept her shawls and handkerchiefs for myself), praying for her soul’s repose at the family altar.

Mom’s ashes were inurned in a columbarium four months after her death. Again I watched my sisters cry their eyes out when the day came to say goodbye to the urn holding her remains.

But my tears wouldn’t come. I did look forward to the comida china afterwards where the family gathered around a table while a lazy Susan was swung clockwise and counterclockwise as we helped ourselves to food, food, glorious food—that was all in my mind and rumbling tummy.

I still am the object of fat lady jokes from the family although I’ve made the effort to cut down on binge eating, and do gentle exercises that aren’t hard on my joints.

Mommy Lolarga in a recent photo

“Why did I let myself go on your account?” I’d ask while gazing at Mommy’s picture when she was a slender young adult.

Maybe it was a form of rebellion going as far back as my teens. Mom kept her figure all her life, even after her eighth baby—I didn’t want to be like her.

She cooked like a pro—her morcon is irreplaceable. I never did the dutiful daughter role by learning how her dishes were done. She followed no recipe and relied on her estimates and instinct the way most of her generation did.

Mom was a loyal office worker. Her years of service ran to decades whereas I would leave at the first sign of discontent.

I guess I harbor a vestige of guilt. Her deathbed request to me was to give her a sip of Coca-Cola after a meal of broth and gelatin. I explained to her that because of the scarring in her guts, Coke would only hurt her so I practically forced water on her.

Bad girl! I should’ve, I should’ve given her a few sips of Coke! But I wouldn’t have been able to stand the sight of her cringing in pain from stomach spasms.

After I texted friends and family announcing Mommy’s death, Sr. Perla Macapinlac, ICM, of the House of Prayer in Baguio immediately responded: “My prayers for her and you. She has only gone home to God, but God’s home is everywhere in the universe, including our hearts, so your mother has not gone away. She is right there in your heart.”

And in my gut, I hasten to add, where Mommy, early in my life, left her indelible imprint.-- Elizabeth Lolarga

This article originally was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer's Lifestyle section on Oct. 30, 2016.

The times of Mommy's life

The best Mother's Day gift I received arrived in my email yesterday, a lengthy letter from my second-born daughter Ida detailing how her class of 21 nursery students prepared for their own tribute to moms. She clinched her letter with what I'd call an "Ida-ism": "happy mother's day, nanay! you make my eyes roll and you may not be my favourite person, but i love you."

Gliceria "Nene" Dula as a debutante in 1946

Holding her second-born child, my sister Evelyn Marie ("Embeng")

My own Mommy made my eyes roll not just a thousand times. Among my sisters we like to joke that of her physical traits, Mom bequeathed us her indio nose and her bunions that make closed shoes uncomfortable.

Our clashes were bitter wars of attrition with periods of peace, with the intercession of Daddy, during mealtimes and occasions like birthdays and Christmas. There was a period in adolescence when I opted to stay home rather than be seen with Mom and her growing brood (a devout Catholic, she followed papal edicts to the letter and refused artificial contraceptives). Alone I cherished the relief from her nagging and what I felt was her overbearing presence.

I longed for a mother who could be a friend and confidante the way my Lola Purang in Baguio was to her children and grandchildren, or the way Aunties Fe and Pacing (my father's sisters) were to my cousins. What I felt the Lord had burdened me with was a battleaxe in a slender and attractive package.

One of my sisters still has this image of Mom with a fly swatter ready to swat not just flies but any erring child. The fanny was her target. I have memories of Mom chasing a sister round and round the round dining table with a flyswatter in her right hand. We knew what kamay na bakal meant early on.

I was only able to say what was in my heart to my mother through a letter when I approached my 60s. The letter wasn't even penned by me. It was written for me by former Baguio Writers Group president Luchie Maranan when BWG had a commissioned handwritten letter campaign in February 2015. I supplied the ghost writer with the inputs on what I had been meaning to tell my mother, among which was how I appreciated her sacrifices for the eight children she bore even if this meant a lack of quality time for us since she and Daddy had to go out and work to provide for us. When I finally held Luchie's letter, the hair on my arms stood up. Her penmanship uncannily resembled Mom's, and my first thought was, "Why is Mommy writing me a letter through the BWG?"

Baguio still means happy memories to us. It was where our parents brought us in the summer, and it must have cost them a pretty penny to do so. Thank you, Dad and Mom!

The mellowing of Mom came with the coming of the grandchildren. Her oldest apo Carlo's Matchbox collection is courtesy of his Lola Mommy, who spoiled him to pieces.

This is what I mean by Mom's makuha ka sa tingin facial expression captured by poet Mila D. Aguilar during an intimate concert at Balay Kalinaw organized by Pablo A. Tariman.

Anyway, when Mom read "my" letter, she told my daughter and sisters that even late in the day, I had come to realize why she was the way she was--her sternness, her disciplinarian's ways. By becoming a mother myself, I have seen that motherhood is the toughest job in the world. And that the fretting over one's children and their well-being, even if they're already adults, never ever stops.

My mom was a proud and vain woman, ramrod straight in posture, always well turned out, fully made up whenever she left the house, whether for the office (she worked until her 70s) or a Legion of Mary meeting. An illness crept up on her late last year. Today she is a ghost of her former self, but to me she is even more beautiful as peace slowly descends on her. She mumbles in that state between wakefulness and sleep--I try to decode what she says in hopes I get clues to her past which she has always been reticent to share, except for the good times. Her knees buckle when she tries to stand with assistance from hefty adults.

But our faith teaches us hope--miracles are possible. If her body and mind don't heal fully, my siblings and I plus those who fondly call her Auntie/Tita Nene or Mommy Lolarga (from the streetsweepers she has befriended to the village security guards she sends merienda to) pray that her spirit does, ready to return to the source of Light and Love. And when Judgment Day comes, she will be restored to full glory. This we all believe.

Guess who has the biggest smile in a family picture from one Christmas in the 1990s? That's our Mom, vibrant in red and seated second from right.

Our poster girl for reading

Soon April comes and she will. She'll be called Literature Month as stipulated by law. I recently happened upon my Mom, our family's convalescent, reading from her bed with such concentration that I was able to snap a stolen shot without her noticing. Her concentration reminds me of that quote attributed to actor Charlie Chaplin: "Nothing is permanent in this world, not even your troubles." So relax and curl up with a book. It's summertime after all when the reading is easy. Photo by Babeth Lolarga

Fab at 88

My old office stood at 88 East Capitol Drive. The bungalow on an elevated lot that used to house Raya Media Services Inc. is gone, and in its place is Shine Special Education Center, Inc. Sharing a space in the Shine building is Rub, a ribs and manly fare place that Mom likes to call in for orders of their baby back ribs with sidings and extra barbecue sauce when she's in no mood to prepare a meal for her hungry hippos (that's us her children).

When I think of mom and many things I associate with her, she really stands for the appeasement of hunger. I don't think we ever had to go to bed hungry in our lives in the years we've spent with her. As for intellectual and spiritual nourishment, we each follow what gives us bliss.

The feeder in the family just had to cut short her "staycation" at the Linden Suites courtesy of her youngest born Gigi because she had to attend again to the food preparations (to welcome the stuff she had pre-ordered, not to cook) for the Sunday celebration of her 88th jubilee.

Photo by Gigi Lolarga

When my sister Embeng asked what words should be iced on Mom's Hizon's mocha cake, I didn't have to think twice: "Fab at 88 Mommy dearest."

Mom had a contingent of willing candle blowers to assist her: youngest grandchild Bianca and great grandchildren Kai, Max and Jared.

Photo by Embeng Trinidad

It's still your birth month, Mom. Enjoy enjoy And Joy!

Being Mommy Lolarga

In her most recent blog entry in http://cbrainard.blogspot.com/, writer Cecilia Brainard wrote both of herself and her mother Concepcion Cuenco Manguerra, "It's difficult for me to describe her accurately because I only saw one side of her. I remember her as high strung and dramatic."

I couldn't agree more. Of all the subjects I will ever come to write about, Gliceria "Nene" Lolarga or Mommy looms as the hardest one to tackle. She is still very much around and isn't everyone's idea of what a near 88 year old looks like.

Mother to eight adults who're mostly in their 50s

Having been orphaned early and raised by aunts and a much older sister, she had no real models on how to become a mother, the hardest job in the world, bar none. Nevertheless, she continues to be mother to eight grownups and countless adopted ex-youngsters, including formerly erring nieces and nephews in need of a step-mom kind of discipline. The security guards and street sweepers in our Pasig neighborhood address her as "Mommy Lolarga".

I sometimes think she over-mothers us, but then that is what mothers do: worrying to bits. She hasn't given up the practice of phoning the offices of her youngest children to check if they have arrived safely (a constant source of embarrassment for my sibs).

With six of her eight grandchildren in the 2010 Christmas photo. Not present were Calgary-based Sara and Christian Lolarga

In July 2013 with her great grandchildren Machiko Skye, Jared Franco and Kai Myknonos

She is also grandmother to eight and glamorous great-grandmother to three (she is Mama Mermaid). Being a grandmother has softened her as far as tugging the reins of discipline are concerned. After all, lolas are there to spoil and dote on the third and fourth generations.

She has never really retired in her mind. I've overheard her tell the help how she misses the routine of work outside the home. But she yielded to our request to stop for health and safety reasons. She reluctantly agreed to this; there is some regret there. Her activities with the local Legion of Mary have filled the void somewhat, but they still haven't kept her from muttering aloud how she misses earning her keep.

She has become active in Facebook and asking me to track down friends from childhood and adolescence, a near impossible task since she has outlived many of them.

Here's to you and your unique mothering ways, Mommy L.

Brainard is right: "Remember your mothers!" Always!