7:00 a.m.
‘T was a bright Sunday morning, just woke up, thanked the Lord for the day and said a simple prayer. My mind then flashed back to the chapters of the novel I’ve read just before I drifted to dreamland last night. I jumped out of bed then had to do simple chores in our room like swept the floor, fixed the books I had spread while searching for facts to justify the claims I am currently discussing in the writing of my thesis, washed the spoon and mug I used late last night and scribbled some notes I found important.
8:00 a.m.
While preparing for church, my mobile phone was busy signaling me since an hour before of messages it was receiving re: mother’s day greetings and quotations – my inbox was then full so I had to choose the best messages and kept them and erased the other ones. I wasn’t able to send back thank you’s anymore because I got empty load after a few sent messages…. lol.
11 a.m.
I was back in my quarters, nourished with the message in church, digested and reflected upon it.
I agree with the message delivered by the pastor that: “A mother’s love is a reflection of God’s love to us.” A mother’s love to his child is unconditional just like the unconditional love of God to us, His children. If a child gets wayward, the mother is so patient to guide him/her to be good and remain on the right road. This picture therefore demonstrates the faithfulness and love of Jesus Christ, our Lord to us His children keeping us on the right path.
There are many quotes describing who a mother is especially of her being a superwoman amidst the non-appreciations and all. And like many others, the heroine in my life is my mother. I’m the eldest of eleven children in the family and I witnessed how our mother sacrificed just to keep our home safe and comfortable. There were many super-duper prickly stages the family faced though yet she emotionally, physically and spiritually defied these circumstances with strength and bravery.
Today, when my younger siblings and I gather during occasions, we always talk about our mother especially about her emotional strength. We sometimes wonder where she gets all her strength in keeping her whole. I would always say that if I were in her shoes, I would have been broken down into pieces long time ago before other siblings came into the family. Nevertheless, I’m very thankful that I have a mother like her – a committed and a super mother.
4:00 p.m.
I glanced at the little clock on my table that told me that in just an hour more the day would wrap up its events to add to its files of history and I hadn’t called home yet to greet or say hi to my mother. I wondered though if my younger siblings have done it however I received greetings from some of them earlier this day.
It was my mother, though an elementary graduate, who became my first teacher. She was the one who first taught me how to read and write my ABC’s and 123’s before I enrolled in Grade 1. I never attended a kindergarten school where most children learn first their alphabets and 123’s. My mother was so patient to monitor my progress in school. When I wasn’t able to cope with my lessons, she would find time every night before we were sent to bed to teach me on my home works and guide me to read more, write more and count more even if she was so tired of the demands of the day. She was also my first storyteller. She told me many children’s stories and when more siblings came into the family I helped her repeat those stories to my younger bothers and sisters.
Years after I graduated from college, was already in my mid-twenties and was always away from home, many times, albeit funny, there were moments when I would just reminisce my childhood years and remember the doting of my mother, I would long and cry for her in bed before I sleep, much more when I got sick.
Right now, I’m currently reading a story along with the writing of my MS thesis, tempted, and I can’t forego because I just borrowed the pocketbook (hehehe), about a single mother who got to be brave and face the challenges of being one even if her current situation was from her stupidity. When she learned that she was pregnant, she had to tell the man who fathered it. Three times, the man convinced her for an abortion but she never liked the idea. She then gave birth to a boy who was diagnosed after two years of a speech defect. She courageously faced all the tests in life to raise her son in the most normal possible way.
Celebration
Many to honor every mother celebrated this day’s event. The West and many countries it influenced including us in the Orient and every church regardless of denomination had a share of it. Many gifts I know were given and opened and many enjoyed this notable day.
Becoming a mother is a lifetime commitment that pulls all the instincts of motherhood out to reality. And it is this commitment that fuels her to have the energy that words sometimes cannot even express of how she becomes a superwoman for all seasons. Nothing can describe her compassion, her sacrificial love, her strength, her beauty and all that keeps her a hero in every home.
Quotes
A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts. Washington Irving.
"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you." Exodus 20:12
Into I draw air fresh and clean
Where grasses, trees grow tall and green
The stars that shine look I nightly
With clouds that paint the blue beauty.
At times I sit beneath the pine
At leaves gaze I like crystal shine
The touch of earth so deep and brown
Smells Queen of May’s like perfumed crown.
The soothing pitch of Mother Earth I hear
The morning dew I touch and smell
And smile at Rhodoras pink, shaped as bell.
Wild roots and vines to trees they cling
Look down they search cold, silent spring
The sweet, sweet songs of birds that fly
Gifts all they give to God up high.
With You I am in loved so deep
‘Tis where I dream to live, no droll
So down I kneel, pray, sing and leap
To thank my Lord who made them all!
by: Yolanda B. Botigan/ March 1992
In the midst of a twilight
I sat down alone, forgotten
Eyes wide, mind set
Tracing towards an unknown plight.
Quiet place – I took strength to stand
A teary child, alone, I spied
Like me, another lost seed, I sighed.
Deep a feeling froze inside
Trembling, I slowly took a little stride
Alone, dirty, hungry, tired and helpless
Why? Where? Hopeless?
Who are you? Nobody.
From where are you? Nowhere.
Then lost like me, you are
Yes, just existed and no more.
Growing little seeds --- lost
Beauty of life, dispossessed
Unnamed tomorrow, scattered
Even just a single light
In darkness, little lost seeds …
Grow but groping
Eat but begging
In clothes but unclothed.
Yes, lost, they are
Lost, lost, lost
Will they ever be LOST?
this is just a reprint..... still searching for the name of the original author
I am an Igorot. Take a good look at me. Look at me for I defy the distortions heaped on my image by fellow Filipinos. Look at me for I defy those who have heard of me but have not seen me. Look at me for I am a living proof that defies the inanities of those who seek to degrade my integrity. Look at me for I am a part of you; and you, a part of me.
My skin, the fair and tender Benguet Lily that blooms in May, at the slightest touch of the first rain, hundreds of eyes relish on its sweetness whenever I pass by.
My shape, the graceful contours and the splendor of the eighth wonder of the world – Our Banaue Rice Terraces. And my youth, the greenness of the pines, of the forest and of the lush vegetation that in turn speak of the vitality and the strength of my people.
Look at me for I don’t hide behind the deceptions of cosmetiques – Look at me in my entirety, for I am poor, yet so rich in virtues as purity, honesty and simplicity.
Many centuries ago, my brave forbears set out to discover new horizons that to them meant sunshine and promise. Along the broad span of plains and valleys, hills and mountains, seas and rivers, they finally stumbled into a vast stretch of mountains. On these mountains lurked, the fear of the unknown yet over them was the promise of fertility.
At last, here was the land that was to be theirs, the land that they gave to me, and the land that I will give to my children so long as we exist in this part of the earth.
Over the years, my fathers toiled the early hours of dawn until darkness. Naked as the soil where they trod, they withstood the burning heat of the sun and the biting cold of the mountain winds. With few weapons but with the stoutness in their hearts, they fought the adverse forces of man and nature. With patience and perseverance, they created the forest and dug deep into the earth for the wealth that it hid. With inherent sense of beauty, they built a culture so rich, as their tools were so crude and ugly. Today, other people would wonder how my mother, lacking in all facilities that one finds in modern textile factories, but with the use of sticks and bamboo reeds, have fashioned so intricate a material as the cloth, that I wear. Still, it puzzles many that with no formal schooling my mother wove such rich designs and blended so beautiful the colors that no doubt would stand among the finest works of art.
Bare of tools and armed with ingenuity and resourcefulness, my fathers carved out of deep walls of these mountains, a magnificence that was to astound the world. Amidst our rice terraces is the skill, which surpasses many of man’s engineering feats. Amidst the beauty of our rice fields, our farms and our mines, which we have nurtured for ages with our sweat and blood, is proof of the ingenuity of my people. Amongst my people is the pride, which I must cherish with fervor as long as I live.
Who will speak for my fathers who have fashioned beauty out of these mountains and brought progress into this land? for my fathers who have contributed so rich a cultural legacy to this country?
Today even as alien cultures have seeped to the very core of our way of life, who will stand up for the quest of a true Filipino identity, unblemished by foreign tastes and idiosyncrasies? Who will answer the question of who is “the most Filipino among the Filipinos?” Truly, it is I. I am an Igorot!
Still, as the truth of the past is slowly unfolded, it saddens me and my brothers that here remains some callous hearts that would refuse to see the light. Truly, this is man’s inhumanity to man. What do I have that makes me anathema to writers of books and magazines? What have I done that has earned me the contempt of my own people?
I possess nothing but virtues which man has extolled over the centuries. That is what I possess. I have nothing but courage in the face of danger, fortitude – in my duties, patience in life. That is what I have. I have done nothing but toiled hard from the bowels of the earth until, such time as when prosperity flowered from my sweat and labor. And I have done nothing but defend to the last breath every inch of the ground which my fathers rightfully claimed their own. That is what I have done.
Over these rugged slopes and mountains, these fields and rivers my toils and struggles, my colorful heritage and my heroic past, I cry out with rage and indignation, “Rise up you souls of my immortal fathers and we will challenge the wisdom of this society. Rise up my unsung heroes and help me shout into the heavens … Give me justice which you have so long denied me. Bring me the glory that was mine, and give me back the honor to my name!
I am an Igorot, son of parents in whose veins
flow Malayan and Indonesian blood. I was born
and reared amidst the mountains and hills,
covered with sturdy and verdant pines, that
sway and dance with the mountain breeze, beside the
mountain streams. This part of the country, the
mountain provinces I have learned to love and
called my home.
I am an Igorot. In my veins run the immortal
blood of my gallant, peaceful and freedom
loving forefathers. Blood borne by them, who openly
defied the authority of Spain, in the year
sixteen hundred and one. Again, it was the
blood that also freely flowed in the bloody
battlefields of the world famous Bataan and in
the rocky bastions of Corregidor.
That blood is immortal. It is the self-same
blood that flowed in the hearts of my
grandfather, father, uncles, cousins, and
nephews, who formed the might, 66th infantry.
Blood that watered the wild lilies of the
treacherous mountains. Some of them died,
fighting that I may be what I am now, a free
man, living in a free country governed by the
principles of democracy.
I am an Igorot, a proud one. I am proud of my
noble, brave, peaceful and hardworking
ancestors. Proud of the mountains and hills,
rivers, trees, and of the lilies that adorn the
forests which were given by Him above to mine.
Proud of the canao, and of the custom and
traditions handed to me from generation to
generation. Proud to beat the gangsa and to
hear the ravage sounds of the solibao.
I am proud too of my Christian status and
education, brought about by the pioneering goal
of the occidental missionaries and teachers.
Proud to be in an integral part of the Republic
of the Philippines.
Though in educational, economic, social and
political aspects, I may be far behind. Though
in high society, I may be frowned upon. Though
all and all, I may be called a barbarian. Still
I shall shout aloud that all may know and hear,
that I Am An Igorot.
