Of mothers and fathers

WITH THE CELEBRATION of Mother’s Day in May and Father’s Day in June, I hope you all have a wonderful time honouring your parents, or – if you’re a parent yourself – happily marking the two occasions with your children. 

In this conversation, with your indulgence, I will go a bit personal. This is about a chat I had with my own parents a few years ago. Brace yourselves.

They were old and sensitive; one of them was hard of hearing. As a migrant here in Hong Kong and being 13,200 km away from them, I was making a habit of calling them whenever I had the chance. That morning, I called my father and asked him to send me copies of their passports.

“Bakit kailangan mo ng kopya ng passports namin?” my father asked. 

“O di ba pupunta nga kayo ng Hong Kong this September?” I replied.

“Hindi na kailangan, US Passports naman ang hawak namin eh,” he answered.

It’s no secret how proud he is of their US passports. It’s like a ‘kill’ that an alpha male

wolf displays when his pack shows up. “Tsaka bibili na kami ng ticket next week. Dadalhin namin yung passports. WALA

KAMING TIME MAGPA-COPY,” my father stubbornly added.

“Eh ako na nga ang bibili ng ticket nyo via online eh. Ako na ang sasagot, AKO na MAGBABAYAD,” I said. 

Silence… more silence… then a voice… my father’s. 

“ILANG KOPYA ANG KAILANGAN MO?”

I remember my father as a dad who was always proud of his children. “Anak ko yan,” he’d proudly mention to anyone he might bump into. It’s actually from him that I got the pleasantry of saying, “Oo anak ko yan.

Matagal na, MALIIT PA YAN, ANAK KO NA YAN EH,” which never failed to elicit laughter from those who would hear it.

He was fun to be with. Chatting with my parents was something I loved doing. But that day was extraordinary because I got the chance to write about our conversation.

Gusto mo bang makausap si Mama mo?” my father asked. “Sige Pa, pakibigay yung phone,” I said.

My mother was the listening mom. She always made time to listen to her children, like when we didn’t feel well and needed to explain where it hurt, or when we wanted to tell her about our day at school. 

When I was a young boy, she had the patience to listen to my questions and understand them – it mattered not how annoying the questions might be. 

“Ma, di ba yung Taiwanese sa Taiwan galing,tapos yung Japanese sa Japan, saan galing yung Manganese? Sa Mangga ba? Or “Ma, bakit ang English ng paru paro ay ‘butterfly’? Bakit hindi ‘margarine-fly’?”

In her later years, she could no longer use her listening prowess. Her hearing was failing her. I missed the patience with which she listened, and her knack for picking up whatever I said, even when she was cooking, doing the laundry, or watching American Idol on TV.

Like that day when there was a typhoon in Hong Kong; I had to be notably slower and a little louder when conversing with her, particularly over the phone.

“Hello Roni, kumusta ka?”

“Ok naman ako Ma. Kaya lang, dito sa Hong Kong, may konting bagyo,” I said (slowly and loudly).

“Ha?” Anong bag?

“Hindi bag, Ma; bagyo!”

“Ha?”

“Bagyo. Meron ditong bagyo.”

Silence. A slightly long silence.

“Ma, sabi ko BAGYO,” I said again.

“Ah, ok,” my mother finally replied. “LAB YU din.”

This coming July will be the 5th anniversary of the death of my mother; she passed away in 2017. Then in October 2019, my father left us too. My siblings and I lost both of our parents within just two years and three months. 

We miss our parents. I miss them. I can’t talk to them anymore. I can no longer hear their voices. So all I can do is to write about them. And I would. So I did.

If your parents are still alive, show your care for them while they can still feel it; tell them you love them as often as possible while they can still hear it. Please don’t wait until it’s too late. Happy Mother’s Day and Happy Father’s Day to you all.