Monday, June 1, 2009

of mothers and daughters
















they say all mothers are daughters first. hence, they know what love means on the both sides of the fence.

i am an exception to the rule. i may now be an expert on loving my children, but i never had an idea of how i was loved by my mother. no, it's not that she had her shortcomings. it was more because she died very early at the age of 24 when i was just 6 years old. my memories of her were very hazy and blurred. i just knew she had those crippling headaches and one day, she was dead. i do not know if it was a blessing that i grew up never hearing a mother's daily irritating chants that my friends used to tell me. i got used to dressing up all by my lonesome self when i was already of school age. there was no one to bring me to school nor was there that someone who buys all my school needs. i had no one to hold my hand or kiss me goodbye before i walk the few meters from home to school. despite all these, i survived. the greater part of my survival was because i had a great father, the one who shaped and molded me into a person that i was before i married the man who would later change me into the person i am now. ( my father deserves a nice blog, so i won't mention him here anymore.)

there is no use wondering what kind of a mother mine could have been had she been blessed with a longer life. one thing is sure, though, i probably would love her the way my daughter timmy loves me now had we been blessed with longer years together. as it is, and i ask for forgiveness for this, my love for my mother is that kind of "built-in" love that all children should have for their mothers. ashamed as i am, i have to admit that because i did not know her that much, my love for her is not as deep as every child's love for a mother should be. i guess this will remain as one of the things i won't have knowledge of throughout my lifetime- a mother's love. maybe her brand of 'mothering' is totally different from mine, but i will never ever know the difference. despite her early demise, i still thank God that it happened at a time when i was still innocent and young. As such, i didn't have the capacity to tell the difference of living with and living without a mother.

i hope there is another time and space given us mortals beyond this life so that what we missed early on in our lives, we still can catch up with later. it would be nice if somewhere, sometime, my mother and i can have some coffee and cookies in a place similar to starbucks. it wouldn't just be one cup for each of us. i have a lot to tell her- a lifetime, actually.

In picture above is my mother, Milagros Domingo Ferrer in a borrowed wedding gown. Reliable sources told me that this was taken a few weeks before she died on November 5, 1959. I was 6 years and two months old at the time. They said she was so keen on having a solo picture of her dressed in a wedding gown. Since a neighbor has just gotten married then, she borrowed it and went to a nearby studio where the picture was taken.










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