Flashbacks

I dreamt about my mother the morning of her birthday. In the dream, I was with my brother and sister seated around a small table. We were sharing fond memories of our mother. Retelling stories of personal incidents during her life and our childhood. My mother was not in the dream per se. There was just a sense that if it were a video, her presence was there as an inset. And it was not creepy or mournful or even sad. She was there as if to listen to what we had to say.

And we had so many stories to share about her - even to each other as siblings. Because my mother was a great mother. I've always said that I sincerely wish everyone of my friends have met her. So they'd understand what I mean. A few minutes of talking with her - anyone would've known that she was a special person with a warm and welcoming heart. And maybe if people have known this, they'd understand why losing her has changed me so much inside. I do think that my close friends who have met her understand better why it has been so difficult for me to handle the loss.

You would have loved her, too. You see, we were the kind of children who rushed to go home after school not because our mother ordered us to but because we wanted to spend time with her. We're the kind of children who were envied because our mother read us stories before afternoon naps, sent us stuffed toys in school on Valentine's Day, baked us our own birthday cakes, helped build art projects, taught us calligraphy on weekends. She made us learn and recite nursery rhymes and well-loved poetry by Marlowe, Whitman, Longfellow. She bought me classic books like Wuthering Heights and Little Women. Also pocket dictionaries.

She was funny, gregarious, intelligent, sociable. My love for reading and writing were her influences. When she read out loud to us, she glided her fingertip along the line she was reading and so even before I actually knew how to read, I was familiar with the "shape" of the word in print. She gave me my first diary when I was eight and encouraged me to write my thoughts everyday. I've always kept a journal ever since - in the forms of juvenile scented notebooks, standard 80-sheet ruled notebooks, of .doc and .txt files, of blog entries, and more recently, a Moleskine.

In the dream, my siblings and I talked around a table. We don't do that anymore, but we used to have them all the time when we were growing up. My mother was the kind of parent who wanted to hear our opinions. The first time we transferred provinces, she all sat us around the table and told us of the many changes and adjustments that we will have to go through during the period. I was ten at the time, seated with the others in the table, asked of my concerns, and treated as an adult. And this happened often because we moved quite a lot.

And even when we were already working, she was the mother who would pick sampaguita flowers from our backyard and put some of the blossoms in my bag so that it'd smell fragrant. In fact, when I was packing my things in Azeus, I saw one of the sampaguita branches she gave me which I kept in a box. I don't know why I kept it. But I'm glad I have the dried up flowers in my treasured possessions. There was also the mask I had to wear when she was already in reverse isolation in ICU. I'm still conflicted whether to keep that one. I find myself constantly in this place where I want to forget but I need to remember.

My mother was also very human - with weaknesses and contradictions. Until the very end, she regretted not being able to give up smoking. And it was one thing that she always asked forgiveness for. To us and in her prayers. I have seen her try to quit all throughout those years. Many, many times. Often dramatic memories when she would ask us to throw out all cigarettes, lighters, ashtrays and she'd end up in tears. Weeks or days or hours later when she couldn't resist the temptation, she'd pick up the habit again.

As a kid, I never understood how hard it could be. Naively, I drew an anti-smoking poster and stuck it on one of the ref magnets complete with text copied from health books about how smoking is bad for the health and with a real cigarette stuck in the center of the paper for added effect. I think it was Papa who took the cigarette from the poster and smoked it. What irony. Yeah, we were a comedic family.

A part of me believes I'm meant to be single forever so I'm not keeping a list anymore of what I am looking for in a person, but if I were - smoking is a deal-breaker for me. I'm not being judgemental or self-righteous. In fact, it's because I'm being selfish. I don't ever want to go through all the magnificently long drawn out pain of losing a loved one because of this habit. I have gone through it with both of my parents. And it felt like you had to helplessly stand and see them kill themselves willingly and hate themselves for it. It is hell and it is as if your heart is wrenched out from chest. No, no. It would have to be somebody else's wife. Somebody else's child. I won't sign up for that all over again.

My mother would disapprove of this notion, I know. She always told me that I had a tendency to be inflexible in a sense that I have no in-betweens. Black and white - no grays. I am stubborn and she was worried that my extreme likes and dislikes would make me miss out on some of the things in life.

The way things stand, I'm set to miss out on a lot of things in life, anyway. Having a wedding where your parents give you away. Or having a family with a mother to guide you in raising a child. And a more trivial thing: my new office emphasizes on work-life-balance and they have these family day activities every now and then where you bring... well, family. I absolutely dread it. Because I can't bring anyone. Just yesterday, I had to call up an aunt I haven't spoken with for years just to ask if she could confirm my information to the bank where I was opening an account. It was funny and awkward and just utterly pathetic.

One of things my siblings and I talked about is that during those times when we were all living apart from each other - and it was not very unusual that our family of five were in five different cities at the same time - home was always where our mother was. Home was not a fixed city or even a tangible house. Home was where my mother can listen about our day, give us a hug, talk to us, let us know how much we were loved. And no matter where we're coming from - a toxic semester in college or a long day at work - we all knew where home was. Or who home was.

And it still stands true. We'll all be going home someday to where she is. In the meantime, I'm trying to live my life with intention. So I could have something worthwhile to tell her when I see her again.

Happy birthday, Mama.