I learned how to belly dance even before I was born. I was still in my mom’s pregnant belly when she started taking lessons. Mom said, “I thought I was getting fat, so I took belly dancing to slim down. That ‘fat’ was you!”
She was pregnant with me at the age of 40. The doctors told her, “You might consider getting an abortion, at your age, your child may be born retarded.” Mom said, “I don’t care if he is, if that is what God gives me that is what I will take.” Today, Mom says with a laugh, “See? Ang akong anak ‘sos ka retarded but I still love him.” haha…
I asked Mom, ‘What should I do?” as a confused college sophomore who doubted whether pre-med was the right route. Mom said, “Follow your dreams because if you follow mine, the day I die, they die with me. You must live your own dream so that it will be with you for the rest of your life.” This anchor of advice I confide in today if doubt ever creeps in. I became an artist…
Mom said many things about dreams. “My dream is to have a house in Dumaguete and retire there.” And so, after 40+ years working, her American Dream finally arrived in the Philippines. It’s a humble home built on a plot of land that once belonged to my grandparents, with blades of grass growing in a yard that they once walked on in a former form.
Each room of Mom’s house is like traveling through pockets of her mind. I remember sketches on her drawing table, then blueprints, now reality. Color. Shape. Objects. A transparent blue vase given to her when she retired. I travel through her mind and through time, forging new memories in the present. I hear her whisper through its walls…
“’Sos ka baho gud nimo dong, pag ligo diha!”
“Ay, whateber, you will do it anyway eben ip I tell you no, you still still do eet!
Saaa-MOK!”
“Unsa ba gud na’ng nintendo nintendo diha…”
Mom said…
There are many things that Mom never said. She continues to speak by how she lives. Bahala na. With silent wisdom she speaks into my conscience. About work ethic. Commitment. Education. She quietly instills the importance of dreaming. Unwavering faith. And travel. I call her often while I wander around the earth. Mom said recently, “You are my eyes, my ears, and my legs. Explore as much as you can.”
Many of the things that Mom said, says, and will say, are timeless. Time sews objects, cultures, and eras onto its permanent cloth, but Mom has surprisingly evaded its thread and needle. Her weapons — words and forethought — are qualities that few possess today. We’re too preoccupied with the next useless FB post or tweet to speak or think about where we are going to be 40 years from now. Her examples are artifacts of how we used to think. We dream now of things in the short term, not long; of quickness, not what endures; of the ephemeral, not what lasts.
Mom said, “Do not forget…” And so on this day, I want to say, I remember you, Mom. With the same words and forethought, I remember all the exquisite things you say with simplicity; I remember that your faith breathes within me; and I remember to never forget to dream. Only through words can I remember to thank you this Mother’s day and every day. Your little retarded, belly dancing child says, “I love you.”
