From Dreams to Se7en

a glimpse of the previous bodypainting competitions. music: Valley of Dreams by Enigma

LEGACY

I have been searching deeply for an inspiration to write another post but nothing was found until today. Hearing a news from my dear sister Arlene about my little brother having a gall bladder operation in the not so far away place called "America". Dialing his number for many times just to hear he is OK or just for him to hear our voice will mean everything will be okay but who answers me is the female answering machine...
It is Mother's Day today and this post is for all the mothers whom I know, who I met, who are everybody's mother. Some of us do not really know are mothers - why they are so protective, why do they have to watch what we eat and why we don't take our life seriously.
In the last decade of my mom's life, I can truly say that she has proved her point and her role as the pillar of our home. We have come so close together that even five years since she has passed away, I stood up from my gardening chore and went to my father and asked where mom was. "She was gone already a long time ago," my father answers me with a questioning look. Suddenly, goosebumps. I swear she was behind me when I was loosening the soil in the garden.
Sometimes I see her pass by ,dressed in her favorite purple housedress.
Maybe these are signs that she wants me to visit her grave because she misses the hourly talks as she watches me cut the fabrics for my clients (and ended up making a pant instead of a blouse because she never stops talking), the 12:00 am habit when I she will wake me up to accompany her in the dining table for a quick snack (yes, of left over "pinirito" and rice) for she is hungry again, or maybe I just missed her excited look and criticisms when I make her "once-a-month-new-dress" for her fashion show when she gets out to get her monthly pension in the bank.
We had our many cold wars and many dramatic moments that surpassed the number of happy moments. Our relationship is not different from yours but what makes our relation greater is that she has become one image that I still look up too, one image of authority that needs to be followed and one image who has implanted a legacy not just in me but in stepdaughters as well. These two stepdaughters who became our (me and alvin's) mothers as well.

We have become our sisters' responsiblity, Nang Nene and Nang Alma have become our guards when we were teased as "gays" in the streets, our bankers when we have to study somewhere else and live with them, our "platforms" when we perform for the public for they brought us higher to elation because they are there to cheer us up together with our parents.
We have grown up and our sisters have already become "true" mothers with their own families. They already have their own wars within their members, they already have their own trophies to boost to the other mothers but they never have stopped being our mothers when our mom had long gone. It is because we can never stop loving no matter what, that is mother's legacy.
To my two mothers/sisters, thank you for the ears, the eyes, and the hearts that never stopped beating for their children...

Di ba nong?


photos courtesy of Saqueo Magallanes Cabales