Beyond life, beyond words
Until the very end, you chose to do things silently—because they taught you that actions speak louder than words, and that sacrifice without demanding anything in return is the purest form of love.
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Until the very end, you chose to do things silently—because they taught you that actions speak louder than words, and that sacrifice without demanding anything in return is the purest form of love.
Theo Anthony Cabantac
"What is grief, if not love persevering?"
This is what I remind myself when I think of my Mang. Two years have never felt shorter. I can still hear her calling us to eat. I can still smell the liniment oil she used to ease her aching body.
Two Mother's Days spent calling out to the void, hoping that somewhere, somehow, she could feel how much we miss her.
But alas, one can only hope. It is the closest thing we get to a reply in this cruel, cruel world.
What's funny is that if she were here today, she would vehemently refuse to be written about in any way. She never liked the spotlight, yet here I am, her ever-insistent balong telling her story.
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God knows she never wanted this life. Married off by her parents at an early age, she would tell me how she cried at her wedding out of sadness instead of joy. She wept at the thought that she would be taken away—from her family, and from the life she had envisioned for herself.
From that point on, she was a housewife. Up until her death, her world was confined to the four corners of the home—cooking, sweeping, and scrubbing away the regrets and the almost-lives she could have lived.
This was all she had ever known—and this was all she ever had.
Curious, I would repeatedly ask her, "Then why remain?"
She would take a second to reply.
"....I learned to love them eventually," she would say.
"Didn't you even fight back?"
"You cannot disobey your parents during my time, balong," she answered.
"So, you just...accepted it?"
"Yes. You'll learn to love it, eventually."
It broke me to hear those words from her. I knew she didn't learn to love any of it.
I saw it in her eyes—tired and hollow as she endured every beating, all the indignities as she was looked down as an elementary-graduate widow raising five kids on a meager pension.
But the only thing that kept her going was her children. The only time I saw color return to her eyes was when she looked at us. Her voice would brighten, and she would beam cheek to cheek with the most uplifting smile there was. Her limbs would spring up for an embrace—then she would pull us into the kitchen for the warmest, heartiest versions of our favorite meals. We would find our rooms fitted with fresh linens and bedding, with bath towels and clothes tucked in the cabinets on the side.
It was only now that it dawned on me how she expressed her love. Beyond her typical loud rants and lengthy sermons, she loved gently and silently through gestures she had mastered as a mother of two generations. You would never run out of cooked rice in the pot. Clothes were always ironed, tucked neatly in the drawers. She was present in the biggest and smallest things that I tended to overlook until she was gone. She could be as terrifyingly angry as she was compassionate—soft, but willing to do anything as long as her children were comfortable.
As much as I want to celebrate Mother's Day with all the strong, beautiful moms in the world, I only end up grieving. To be blessed with a loving mother—it is an experience no words could ever describe.
An experience I can only ever feel again by reliving the memories of the past.
So to all the silent lovers out there—mothers who gesture their affection more than their mouths could ever speak: I see you.
To my Mang, who was also a silent lover, know that I see it now. That love isn't about taking center stage to proclaim it loudly; it's also about letting others shine, and allowing them the solace of knowing that there will always be someone clapping and cheering for them in the crowd.
Until the very end, you chose to do things silently—because they taught you that actions speak louder than words, and that sacrifice without demanding anything in return is the purest form of love.
But Mang, we never really got to say goodbye. No more loving hands that were as callused as they were welcoming.
Only the cold, stiff husk of where you once were—and the emptiness that will never, ever be filled again.
Beyond life, beyond words—I could never ask for a better mother than you. It is through you that I can proudly say: in this lifetime, I was deeply and unconditionally loved.
