BY JULIA CARREON-LAGOC
MOTHER’s Day is celebrated every second Sunday of May, and one celebration that the years have not erased in my mind’s eye is the picture of my youngest daughter Raileen, then in the grades. She was on the school program to deliver a tribute to mothers. Hers was a childlike yet booming voice as she opened her piece: “MOTHER – what a sweet word to utter!”
Who is to refute the sweetness of that word? Neither you nor I except the unfortunate ones who must have suffered from a psychological trauma vis-à-vis mothers. Nonetheless, theirs are entirely different stories for psychiatrists to unravel and to cure.
Is there ever a politician’s wife who has a distaste for politics? That would be a rare breed. Count my mother, Cristeta Calantas Rivera before her family name became a hyphenated Rivera-Carreon. She was apolitical in every sense of the word—an exception in our political landscape where wives are hell-bent to tussle for their husbands’ victory or to install themselves as heir apparent or replacement to the “throne” when the incumbent’s term has expired.
Nanay wanted Tatay, Simplicio Cordova Carreon, Sr., to continue being the high school principal rather than follow the urgings of friends and relatives that eventually installed him Oton mayor for three terms. Oh well, the rest is history, to use a convenient phrase.
In the whole length of father’s political life, I never saw my mother campaign for my father. I think her being kind to everyone was her strongest force to win people to vote for her husband. Never have I heard her speak ill of other candidates nor of another human being. And never ever have I heard her say a cuss word in all the years that she had nurtured us all seven children. Gosh, it is as if I’m on a campaign binge for my mother with this column. No siree! Like my Mom, I harbor strong aversion to the murky world of politics that has gone to the dogs, reeking with redolent wheeling and dealing. In landing a job, often it is whom you know instead of what you know. My apologies to the straightforward ones who stand unshaken on their merits and irreproachable character.
Of the many jeep rides I took from school to home, I recall one instance where I was exchanging views with a fellow passenger. Someone beside me remarked: “Now I know why you are good-natured (yes, me!). It’s because you are the daughter of Titang (fond name for my Mom).” A compliment more in praise of my mother rather than this writer. What did I say to that? “Sa kamalingking (small finger) lang ako ni Nanay.” The Visayan idiom of self-deprecating comparison had hit its mark.
Mother possessed a compassionate nature I could not equal. She tended a sari-sari store, and she kept a box containing a long list of debtors because she said she just could not refuse a person in need. She would limit the goods a person needed from her store, but turn him away, she couldn’t. When she succumbed to breast cancer at the prime age of 56, the whole barrio mourned her passing. When we sent her to her final resting place, a long line of barrio folks joined the funeral procession. An aunt commented, “I wonder how many of those people have unpaid goods from her tiangge (mini grocery store), how many are in her list of debtors.”
Mother was the epitome of cool. How I would have wanted to inherit her composure in confronting “life’s trials and tribulations.” She could be angry, yes, but without the very to describe the intensity. A story handed down to her apos was that when the family was rushing to leave home due to the rumored Japanese penetration (war time era), mother told everybody to wait because, said she, “I still have to brush my teeth.” To this day, I remain wondering what strong wind could possibly rock her boat.
Mother was so punctilious — scrupulously clean in word, in thought, and in deed. I never heard her curse nor utter an unprintable. Gee, I’m raising her to high heavens with this remembrance, but I believe that’s where she is now in the afterlife. Every night, she would gather the family for the rosary, and my brothers, who were notorious for dosing off during prayer time, would get a gentle reprimand.
From the perspective of one who is a mother herself, and now a grandmother of four, all my siblings and I have shown our house helpers mother’s own kindness and consideration. Like mother, like children — I believe this would be the best way to honor our mother: to preserve and observe her values.
A stand-out in her character was her disbelief of superstitions. Like her own mother, i.e., our grandma, she threw superstitious beliefs into the garbage bin, so did we her children. She held on to the view that superstitions hinder the march of science, agree or disagree.
Would I say mine was the best Mom in the world? Mother had her own share of shortcomings, but I wouldn’t want to delve into that now.
Some have dismissed Mother’s Day because of its commercial value. More occasions, more anniversaries, more celebrations redound to more greeting cards, more gifts, more blowouts, more festivities. Good for the consumerist society — a whopping profit for business, albeit bad for those who go beyond the bounds of the purse. But of course, everyday can be a Mother’s Day when Mom’s values are held sacred as her offspring’s guideposts in life.
In whatever tongue it it spoken, I daresay, Mother is a magical, awesome, sweet word to utter. (juliaclagoc@yahoo.com)/PN
