Nenita, My Mother

At 85 years old, she still looks strong for a woman her age. Although she walks slower now, than she used to, she can still manage to move about alone, and without the benefit of a cane or a wheelchair. With her short wavey hair as white as snow above her shoulder, we would sometimes tease her that she looks like Marlyn Monroe.

On June 26, 2008, my parents celebrated their golden wedding anniversary at Nuestra Senyora de Guia parish church in Ermita Manila. On the same date and in the same church where they received the Sacrament of Matrimony, I presided over the thanksgiving mass. It was amazing to note that the officiating priest of their wedding was still alive and was one of the concelebrants during their golden wedding anniversary. My father would pass away two years later because of cirrhosis (even though he doesn’t smoke and doesn’t drink alcoholic drinks).

When my father was still alive, we have tried to convince them to move to an apartment. Our house was fast deteriorating due to the effects of flooding and the passage of time, and maintaning a house just for the two of them and a house helper was becoming uneconomical. We found an apartment just a block away from my sister’s house. When we have arranged everything and paid the deposit and downpayment for the apartment, they said they were not ready to leave our old house and that they would not be happy living in the apartment.

It took us a couple of years more, after the death of my father in 2010, to convince my mother to move out of our old house in Malabon.  She didn’t want to stay in the house of any of my siblings either. And so we were just too gratefully when she finally decided to move out from our house and transfer to a one bedroom apartment. And the good thing was that it was just two houses away from my sister’s house.

Once in a while, whenever I have the chance to visit my mother in Malabon, I would make it a point to sleep over at her apartment. She sleeps with the lights off, but with the transistor radio on the whole night. It practically makes it impossible for me to sleep, with the volume of the radio almost at its maximum. She listens to programs over Radio Veritas. When she falls asleep, she would be awakened when I try to turn the radio off. At 4:00 a.m. she would be up to listen to the daily recitation of the rosary over the radio.

Every morning, she would attend the daily mass at the parish church nearby, which is just a few minutes walk. Once a day, she would spend an hour inside the perpetual adoration chapel of the parish church. Every Thursday evening, she attends the prayer meeting of the Catholic Charismatic prayer group. And every Saturday afternoon, she would go to Malabon City Jail, for the anticipated mass that she organizes for the prisoners. They have been involved with the prison apostolate for about 30 years now. When I moved to my new assignment in Davao City, she asked me if we needed a house helper. When I asked her why she was asking, she told me she wanted to help find a job for a prisoner who was just released from the city jail.

In 2008, just before their golden wedding anniversary, I was invited by a group to be one of the chaplains on a pilgrimage to Holy Land. My mother joined me on the pilgrimage. At the Wailing Wall, it was a tradition to insert small pieces of paper in the crevices of the wall. Pilgrims wrote their prayers and petitions on small pieces of paper and inserted them on the Wailing Wall. I was surprised to see my mother approach the wall with a brown envelop on hand. It was full of hundreds of small pieces of paper that she meant to insert on the wall. She even tried to ask for assistance from the other pilgrims.  When I asked her where all those prayer requests and petitions came from, she told me that it came from the inmates of Malabon City Jail. Apparently she told the prisoners that she was going on a pilgrimage to Holy Land and volunteered to bring their prayers, written on small pieces of paper, to the Wailing Wall! That’s Nenita, my mother!