october 1

first day of the tenth month of the year.

it’s been ten years.
a decade since my mom left. she died october first year 1998. i have no clear idea of what really happened or what really caused her death. all i know is that she had a blood clot on her brain that immediately snapped her in coma. or maybe at a young age i didn’t pay attention to knowing more pain after just having a partial recovery of my dad’s death.

july 21, 1997 was intensity 8 shake for me, and october 1, 1998 was a follow up tsunami destroying everything i had just built.

when people ask me, “so what does your parents do? i always answer, “there just sleeping in heaven.” and the follow up response would be, “oh, i’m sorry.” and then the conversation ends there. maybe they are too shy to ask what happened? why? and how come? but if they would just ask, i am more glad to answer those questions. well let’s put it this way, i am used on answering those questions. i don’t want them to feel sorry for me, i just want them to understand me. just ask, and i’ll tell the story.

i guess i don’t have much stories written in here about my mom. i have entries about my dad but this is the first time i am writing about my mom. but honestly, i don’t have much memory about her. or what it is like to be her daughter. i always try to remember the old days, but my memory about mom is blank. real blank, i don’t know if this is repression or retrograde amnesia from my traumatic childhood. (i’ll have therapy when i have enough riches for it) the death of my dad and his memories i have a clear picture, but about mom, it’s still a blurred panorama of her. and i don’t know why.

things i remember about nanay:

1. the night before she went into coma (and was rushed to the hospital) she didn’t sleep beside me, and when i nagged her about it she just said “matuto ka na nang mag-isa.” (referring to sleeping alone in my bedroom). i don’t know if that was a sign, but that was a very memorable line, because the following days, months and years i’ve learned to sleep alone in my bed.

2. that she bargained us (my brother and i) to choose between shoes or field trip. this was on my elementary days when the Sketchers Shoes was so hot, and everyone in school has it. so being a true blue spoiled brat, we nagged and nagged of having a pair. but she bargained “shoes or field trip” and then we chose the shoes. and then the following day, (after having the shoes) we nagged about the field trip. yeah, we’re that spoiled. even i could not imagine how brat i was way back.

it was just years after when i realized why she was bargaining with us. we had financial problems and she has to budget the money left in her pockets. having two kids in a private school and our everyday necessities was indeed hard to maintain. not to mention the two brats she had to handle everyday. sigh, mom’s love. (nay, i’m sorry i was a big brat.)

3. she cooks very well. one of my favorite recipe of her was beef broccoli in which i haven’t tasted for 10 years. nothing tastes like her recipe. and also the lapu-lapu dish. i have a clear memory of how it was cooked, how it smelled and tasted. and again for the last ten years i haven’t tasted anything near to that dish.

4. i have my fingers cut with the vegetable slicer and kept it as a secret. i would clean my cut with her cologne hoping that i’ll heal. surprisingly, you cannot hide anything from her. but instead of scolding me for having her bottle of cologne empty, she just handed me a bottle of betadine and told “yan gamitin mo, mahapdi yung cologne.” and she was right. dumb me.

5. i knew she worked at first south motorist somewhere in taft as a telephone operator. she would always bring me in office with her.

that’s all that i could remember. really. honestly. i have nothing more in this head. waaaa…. and i am now really frustrated about my memory. how come i don’t remember anything. *help*

but with the five things that i remember about her, i had a picture of a good loving nanay. and i have no questions or claims about that. i don’t have the summary of what she has taught me and what her contributions are. but i guess i have a solid proof that i had excellent parents. and that proof would be me, the product of those uncertainties.

i miss you nanay.