There are people in your life who touch you and change you forever.
My Lola Sising.
I was her favorite grandchild. I am her mini-me. She told me time and again how much her heart overflows with joy since I arrived in this world. She taught me how to write kilometric letters. She brought me along in her meetings with people who work in community development. She brought me to slum areas where she was an advocate of improving literacy among the poor, feeding the growing children and keeping the youth out of trouble by sending them to school.
We share a love for documenting everything in life - grabbing each opportunity to have family pictures taken. She showed me her collections of stamps, love letters, coins and all sorts of memorabilia. She would even cut out newspaper clippings to store for future reference. If she were my contemporary in this day and age, she would probably have a facebook account, a blog, a twitter account, instagram and all forms of social media.
She taught me about the importance of family and about standing up for one's values. She stood up for social justice and peace and the value of being good. She told me that one's life should be more than living for oneself. One's life should be lived for the benefit of others. She taught me always to do my best in everything that I do. She would always express how proud she is of my accomplishments, and how I've grown into the person that I am.
She was an emotional person too, easily prone to tears. Parting is such sweet sorrow - a concept that I learned each time she would hug me so tight that it was nearly painful. She would always weep at goodbyes for she'd always think that each goodbye would be our last. Then I would cry too. Even if she's with her one true love Atty Francisco Sy Valenzona in heaven, she will always be in my heart. During her final moments when she could not even recall my name, or who I was, she would nevertheless smile whenever I entered the room, and she would exclaim "I know I love you!"
I love you too, Lola Sising!
My mother Bebe.
My rock. My shield against all troubles, woes, trials and confusion. My anchor whenever I tend to float too far away from the shore. My support group. My sounding board when I need to rant. My worst critic. My bestfriend.
She was a dsrama queen in her early years of life. She was best in behavior. She was an activist during the first quarter storm of the Marcos regime. She met her one true love at the barricades! Such a romatic adventure they had!
She is a great economist and model dieter... but then for some reason, try as I might, I can't follow in her footsteps in terms of economizing and dieting. She's a great mentor, guiding us through our difficult teenage years, teaching us that it is ok to be different. You can be strong and be yourself. She reads to us from the Bible, from Daily Conversations with God and other spiritual materials. She also advices time and again that our habits and our relationships should not lead us away from God.
She is a superwoman. During my father's convalescence, it was the time when she held all of us near to be a family, cherishing the final moments of forgiveness, spiritual healing and offering sacrifices for the sins of the world. It was difficult to care for a patient with advanced stage of cancer. I never felt as helpless as when I was rubbing my dad's back in the wee hours of the morning to ease his gnawing bone pain. When my dad died, I was a senior in college. Our youngest brother was in highschool. A year after college graduation, after a lot of soul-searching, I decided to go to medical school, and she quietly agreed. I know how difficult it was for her to send four kids through college, then add to that one kid through med school and another kid through law school. Isn't she amazing?
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