Doing Ordinary Things with Extraordinary Love: My Mother’s Story

Very few may have heard of St. Mary Parish Shrine in Davao City. It’s the church nearest to our house, but we seldom attend masses there. As with other Philippine churches, however, St. Mary is not without its share of vendors selling all sorts of goods outside it: balloon, toys, popcorn, ice-cream, lechon, mais, and kakanin. The kakanin vendors made up the bunch of vendors outside the church.

My mother used to be one of those kakanin vendors. But she did not start out as one. My two elder sisters were studying in college then—one was taking up Social Work; the other, Education. We relied mainly from the income generated by our PUJ that Papa drove himself. Payment for tuition fee, daily expenses at home, our daily baon, upkeep for the jeepney, electric and water bills, were seldom fulfilled by my parents combined income.

Mama always knew that Papa’s income was not enough. She had to help my father augment our income lest my sisters had to stop going to school, I could not proceed to college right after graduation, and my younger brother’s fate would remain uncertain.

But how? She had no College degree to speak of. She took up BS in Biology in college, but she barely made it through first year. Neither is she young to take menial jobs. It seemed as if she had nothing to show except for her desire to get us out of the pits.

But, in fact, she does have something to show: Her cooking prowess. It was clear to her that the only way she could help Papa was by cooking and selling food. And that’s how Mama found herself selling kakanin outside St. Mary’s church every Sunday.

Mama and her fellow church vendors sold pretty much the same kakanin: sapin-sapin, suman, puto, kutsinta, etc. What’s unique about Mama’s kakanin was that she made the kakanin herself, while her fellow vendors purchased theirs from Bankerohan Public Market.

Since Mama did not only sell biko, preparations would start on Saturday morning.  Everyone was involved in it. We are usually finished past Saturday midnight. We would only sleep for about three hours and wake up before the 5:30 AM mass, the first scheduled mass. We had this routine for about three years until both of my sisters graduated from college. By that time, Mama stopped selling kakanin, and tried her hand at another business: a laundry business.

To be sure, though, Mama is not the only existing person who knows how to cook biko. There may even be someone out there who cooks better than she does. She’s not the most successful businesswoman either. In fact, she struggles to keep her laundry business afloat. Even so, no matter how ordinary it is to sell kakanin or put up a small laundry business, it is nonetheless extraordinary because what impelled her is her great love for her family. She does “ordinary things with extraordinary love,” to borrow the words of Mo. Teresa of Calcutta.

I’m sure Mama had opportunities before to just leave everything behind and run away, freeing herself from the shackles of poverty and the hardships of life. She could have easily given up. But she remained steadfast. She did not shirk from her obligation to raise her family even if it meant tremendous personal sacrifice. In times when the weight seemed to be more and more unbearable, she held fast to God’s comforting words, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Since she did not have a college degree herself, her ultimate dream is for us to get our own college degree. That dream has long been fulfilled. Of the four siblings, only my youngest brother has not graduated yet from college. Nevertheless, Mama is still working as hard as before. She simply feels that a mother’s work never ends. It does not end even when her children finished studying. Neither does it end when her children have their own family. To her, once a mother, always a mother.

I have been a witness to my mother’s magnanimity. Four years ago, our family went into a turbulent period. To my mind, it was the worst problem to have ever hit us. On the day of my college graduation, in April 2010, Mama found out Papa was cheating on her. Soon their virulent ward of words turned into physical fights. Every fight ended up with Mama badly beaten. Then Papa left us and went on to live with his other woman. Our relatives and friends kept on telling us to just let Papa go and move on. Against their advice, however, Mama tried to save our family. I don’t know what exactly brought home, but he did come home. And he’s home eternally―Papa died of acute pneumonia on December 4, 2013.

Perhaps Mama’s story is also the story of several Filipino mothers. It’s far from perfect. Hers neither provides an impressive template on how to raise a family, nor furnishes a fail-safe pointer on how to meet life’s challenges. She did not solve all of our problems, but she equipped us with the right stuff for us to meet whatever life may bring.

As is a tree whose goodness may be judged by the fruits it bears, so is a person. If it were not for the lowly biko and other kakanin Mama used to sell, we wouldn’t have finished college. If it were not for her hard work and the fortitude she showed in the face of trials, we wouldn’t have known the true meaning of sacrifice and love.

Any woman can be a mother. In fact, many women become mothers. Only few, however, rise to the occasion and embrace everything about motherhood—its ups and downs; triumphs and trials, successes and struggles.

I am convinced that my mother is one of those few.