Mamita and Me

Sharing this August 2014 digital journal with family 

My name is Zia. As Mamita attempts to write what she thinks are my thoughts, I am just a little over two months away from my third birthday. My family thinks I have grown a lot, not to mention changed in terms of social skills and intellect since I was born on what many say was a lucky day—a double 10—October 10, 2011.

Mamita tells friends that my name means “splendor” or “light” in Arabic. But the truth is, my mom and dad simply agreed to just spell mom’s nickname, Aiz, backwards. Very Mamita really to find a deeper meaning in things.

On the day I was born, she wrote her thoughts in a worn out little notebook that came with a Hungarian sausage (King Sue) purchase.

Oct. 10, 2011

It is 3:50 AM, more than two hours since we arrived at the San Juan de Dios hospital.

Aiz is in the delivery room as contractions are becoming more frequent. Dilation of cervix is at 3 cm. when we arrived and pain, I can imagine, must already be excruciating.

Incidentally, the resident OB Gyne is also surnamed AMORES. Doctor Amores talked to me earlier to update me of Aiz’s condition. She hints that the baby won’t be due until shortly before lunch. But here we are, waiting outside the delivery room, eagerly awaiting the arrival of our little angel. 

Francis and Gia are at Room 208, sleeping while waiting for the next update.  Mare Bada and Pare Boy are at the chairs/bench opposite where I am.  Since no one else is keeping watch, there must be few infanticipating mothers inside the delivery room.

           

Dawn is about to break. I feel sleep slowly creeping but I have to write this short account of events leading to Zia’s birth.

Yes, I am excited to see the new inspiration in my life. In a few more hours, I can see her.  Does she have the same nose that I saw in her 4D video? Does she have  round eyes like mine? Does she have her mom’s full lips? Are her feet long like her Dad’s? In a few more hours, those questions will be answered.

As the days go by, I will ask more questions—

            Will she be smart?

            Will she be jolly?

            Will she be kind?

            Will she be caring?

            Will she be strong?

            Will she radiate beauty from within?

            Will she be the angel that she is in my heart?

I will see you soon, ZIA ANGELA. My heart beats with joy.

                                                                                    Mamita

One day, she  must have thought, I will read it and know how loved I was even before I was born. Well, without even being told,  I do know I am loved, so much loved in fact that sometimes…wait, make that oftentimes, I put all the adults around me on a tolerance test.

I love to scatter my toys, big and small, on our bed, on my dad’s cushion, on the floor, everywhere in the room. I thought that my colorful toys made the room look more beautiful. “Beetifuy,” as I say it, when my little dolls and their houses, little things no bigger than my hand, making different sounds or remaining quiet unless I throw them with a soft thud. How I loved to see them all over the room that I fake tears and cry when mom or dad attempts to put them inside the big plastic jar or box to tidy up.

The toys are things in my little kingdom where I am a pretty princess like Belle, Aurora, Cinderella, Ariel or Snow White. I can also be the fairest fairy like Jack Frost’s friend.

My imagination is real to me.

I sit on my Yeyaks (relax) chair, feeling very comfortable and “empowered” to lord it over my minions in my Las Pinas kingdom.

Mamita taught me the power of imagination. There was one time when we were waiting for the landfall of a powerful typhoon and the wind outside was strong, she told me, “The leaves are dancing.” So then I thought that it must be a happy occasion we are anticipating as the leaves were already dancing.

Then it began to rain.  So what did Mamita say was happening? “The sky is crying.” So then I thought, there must be a lot of eyes in the sky to produce so much tears.

But my first poetic brush was when I myself saw that the moon peaking at the horizon and then within a few minutes, it got dark and I could not see the moon. Mamita just said the moon was being shy because Zia was beautiful. So whenever I don’t see the moon on a dark night, I tell myself, “The moon is shy. Zia is beetifuy.”

There are a lot of things I share with Mamita. For one, we looove peanuts. If there is one type of food that I think we can bond in, it must be peanuts – Chedeng’s greaseless peanuts from Iligan or Happy salted nuts—I take whatever I am given.

Mamita sings Usahay to me as a lullaby, together with Rock-a-bye Baby, and how I love it when she massages the soles of my feet when she puts me to sleep.

I was told a lot of times that I look like Mamita. Maybe yes, and she is tickled pink when people tell her I could pass for her third child….really?! Well….

Mamita often whispers to me reminders of how I should be when I grow up—that I should be kind, smart, strong and beautiful. And that no matter what, she loves me very, very much.

Dare I ask why she loves me and wants me to be kind, smart and strong? Well, she said that I must take care of my Dad, my Mom and my Ninang when she and Lolo are gone.

She said she loves them so much….but I believe she loves me more. J

October 18, 2014

I am Zia’s Mamita. I am also her friend. We have a very special relationship that is beautiful and God-sent.

In my heart, I felt long, long before that I will be blessed with 4 children. Now 48 with a 24 year old son and 21 year old daughter, I surmise Zia is the third from a different mother and  the 4^th is yet to be born.

Many say that my first grandchild looks very much like me. Yes, in a way, she does. But profoundly so, I think Zia also thinks like me--- a more techie, forward-looking, extroverted kind of me that often tickles me to the realization that indeed, mannerisms, among other things, are passed on from generation to generation.

Take the way I sit with one foot raised to the chair. I remember Mama scolding me often because she thought this was very unladylike and inappropriate. So that now, when I see Zia resting her little foot on top of a chair, I can only smile. 

She also makes believe she can read. I remember that was how I started to love books. That is why as often as I can, I try to feed on this love of ‘reading’ with more books. You should see her inside the bookstore!

There was one time we were at the bookstore and she had already chosen her Cinderella book while I was still browsing for a good buy. Little did I know that she had gone to the cashier, saying, “Buy ako book,” while raising her choice.

The cashier gamely said, “OK. That’s one hundred twenty pesos.” 

Zia replied, “Thank you,” then clipped the book under her armpit as she prepared to leave.

She thought she can just choose and leave! So Gia and I taught her that she has to pay. So we handed her crisp bills and she was all smiles as the cashier put her little book in a brown paper bag and handed it to her.

As a child, I doted on my maternal grandmother, Lola Tering, so much that I somehow thought I was closer to her than my own mother. I loved to tag along as she went to Church, visit her departed loved ones in the cemetery and visit her sisters who lived in Cabadbaran.

I looked forward to weekends in Cabadbaran not only because of puto and sikwate, but most of all, because of Lola Tering. It was doubly fun during summers though when my cousins from Bohol who were more or less my age also came to visit our grandparents.

Now, fast-forward to NOW. I am a grandmother myself and I have a very smart and pretty little lass who calls me Mamita, talks to me on the phone only to tell me, “Mamita, play ako,” then hangs up.

I don’t know how to describe the love that I feel for Zia because with my own children, my heart already brims with joy.