I didn't get as much sleep as I hoped I would. All night last night I thought of my family who so graciously felt they needed to inform me of every Filipino dish they'd cooked for my Mama (grandma) and Papa's (grandpa) birthdays. They had crab, grilled jaw of giant fish, unlucky chicken that strayed into the wrong yard on the wrong day, pork, all the yummy goodness I so sorely miss but absolutely do not need (yeah yeah...enough with the fatty jokes).
Mama would have been... what? 78 today? 77? It's sad that I don't even know that simple fact. I think it's because I'm just terrible at dates and ages... and names...and faces... ok so maybe I have premature Alzheimers. No... I think it's because she's always been around all my life... like the mango tree in our front yard. It's been there for so long, God knows how old the damn thing is. But it has always been a constant. All other fruit trees in our yard have fallen... and have been replaced by other fruit trees... the guavas that mama used to lovingly wrap in paper to keep the worms away, have died. Man... those were big-ass guavas. We used to have a coconut tree but it had to be cut down on account of it dropping its nuts at a whim. It didn't even have to be a windy day. We had a cherry tree that had cherries of all the lovely colors of the rainbow in the summer...which we cut off on account of me falling from it. Having fruit trees was convenient if you had a chock-full of kids in the house with nothing to do on lazy afternoons. At least the grownups never worried about us kids stealing fruit from the neighbors. Or we let them think that. As kids there really was no greater thrill than fruit theft.
Now most of these fruits and all of mama's orchids have been replaced by grass and sand and weed...none of us could grow a mad orchid like mama can. It's her birthday today and I honestly can't say how old she would have been. But this is because I never bothered to know. She was there; a constant... something... someone I came home to on Christmas and holidays and school breaks. To me, mama stayed always the same... always there... never growing old. I couldn't tell you how much white hair she had on her head because she always took care to dye it while I watched in fascination as she used a front and back mirror so expertly... when all my spatial coordinates were whacked when I get in front of a mirror. I could not tell you how her skin felt like paper... because she'd always taken the care to lotion up after a bath. I could not tell you how her muscles started to sag at the weight of the years and the mortal body falling hopelessly decrepit under it because everytime I came home from gradeschool...then highschool...and then university...she hugged me so tightly I could only feel her love and joy at my return. I could not tell you how tired she must have felt on Christmas mornings when she had to wake up to make us our hot cocoa, while papa went down to the baker's for our hot pan de sal. Nor can I know how annoying we kids... that's right...like 20 of us... must have been, jumping around her bed when all she needed was peace and quiet for her heart and rest for her tired bones. We never knew because even if sometimes she would yell at us to be quiet she still had on her a smile and a loving touch and the biscuits she kept for us in the afternoon never hurt either.
It's her birthday today and although I try to find solace in prayer and thought and remembrance, I still wish so badly she were still around. If she were I'd never ever miss giving her a single birthday card and a kiss. Thank you. For the cocoa, the white sheets, the mended clothes, the yelling, the embraces, the waiting up, the waiting for us. I would have told her now, Mama... Happy Birthday. How old are you? I never knew because you always tried to hide the years from us.
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