Because all paths to self-discovery mandates a thorough peek at one’s beginnings and what better way to start if all off than a retelling of my mother’s life?

My family and I, we live pretty well off.  Well, in Pinoy standards we do.  We live in one of those posh villages down south (although it’s no Ayala Alabang, I tell you) in one of those cookie cutter suburban houses with the picket fence and the dogs in the yard.  It’s a comfortable way of living, something that I’ve always accredited to the talents of my father.

But apparently I was wrong; most of these things, including the cars, were because of my mother.  Or more specifically, because of my mother’s brain. 

My father has always told us stories about just how smart my mother is.  She’s smart in that academic way; being that annoying girl who always got good grades without focusing too much on schoolwork.  How do I know this?  Well because during her elementary and high school days she ran and managed their family store after school hours. 

She, along with her two younger sisters, grew up in a life of poverty.  Her father was a jeepney driver who died of some type of cancer when he was just in his 40’s, leaving my mother and her mother in charge of the household.  My mother’s mother (I know that it would be easier to call her ‘grandma’ but I never met her, so I feel the teensiest awkwardness) did all she could so my mother and her sisters could finish their schooling. 

Because my mother literally didn’t know any better, her life long plan after graduating from high school was to apply for a job in the nearest largest factory in the vicinity, a textile factory called Ramitex, and just hope for the best.  But one day, by chance or design from the heavenly watcher, as she was tending to their store her former classmates stopped by for a drink.  Evidently these former classmates were to go to some school in Manila to take a qualifying exam in one of the universities there. 

In that silly characteristic of ‘let’s all do it together’ found in most youth, these friends invited my mother to join them, saying, “Malay mo!”  And because the qualifying exam was totally free, my mother decided to give it a shot, since all she has to shell out money-wise was the fare to Manila.

When the results came, lo, and behold! My mother, out of the whole group, was the only one to pass said examination, granting her a scholarship ticket for college.  It was sometime during her college years that my father moved into my mother’s hometown (sent into exile by his father, but that’s for another entry), I’m just not sure when exactly he fits into the story, is all. 

So they both struggled with their studies, facing the hardships of commuting everyday, walking through floods and mingling with the masses.  Somehow they landed jobs during the last couple of years of college, making them both working students. 

But at home problems upon problems piled.  My mother’s mother became progressively sick and due to greed, the relationships between the three sisters became strained.

-To Be Continued Tomorrow-