Mom's Holiday

I have to pour it out. I can't sleep. I can't cry. I can't do anything to feel better. Last thursday, Mama was confined to UERM hospital. She was already suffering about a week prior to that. She couldn't walk. Her cries when her leg hurts gashes my heart. I keep quiet. I didn't know how to comfort her. I could not show her how much I care. Like her, I am not expressive. I care a lot but I can't seem to show them through my actions. I dont hug, or kiss, or say sweet or mushy things to people, specially to my family. I show my love by taunting, mocking, jeering... fooling around with the people in my life. Manny wasn't used to my kind of lambing. He used to think that I'm making fun of him and it used to hurt him. Probably like me striking his heart with a club. One guy said to me once "pag ikaw ang nagsabi, sineseryoso ko kaya masakit." I made him cry that time when I was just fooling around. I didn't think that just because of my taunting him, I cound make a guy cry. That was the first time I encountered such behavior. Back then, I thought it was shallow. Later on, I saw that Manny had the same mindset. I learned and felt for myself soon enough what that is all about. Love. Come to think of it, I've already had that feeling too. I just never recognized it. Balance. When you love, you care. When you care, you want them to care too. Somehow, what they say matters. What they say gets stuck on you, doesn't get out 'til it crawls in your brain and engrave doodles that hurt down to your heart where the blood gets pumped back up to the doodled brain. You don't care what others say, but what they say gets written in gold. Now, as I wrote on one of my previous posts about jealousy, the feeling is not as important as what you do after you felt that emotion. A friend once told me, "matuto kang ipakita yung nararamdaman mo." Express what you really feel. Because of that, I was able to prepare myself to what I could do to express my feelings when Manny and I got together. More than that, I was able to manifest tactility comfortably with him. Maybe I can't be huggy with my mom because she, herself, isn't huggy with us. I guess environment really sets the standards of a person. How you act depends on how people act around you. As for me, my personality dictates that I easily adapt to people and treat them similar to how they treat me. Although sometimes, my mood still dictates how I treat any particular person. I was raised to be like this, the non-mushy type. Unlike my sister, nor my father, nor brother. But Manny was able to let it out of me. I had it all along. I still can't though with my mom. Although I try to compensate it with other stuff that I can do for her.

I'm sad. I never mind my clothes and how I get to wear them everyday, the house, how clean it is, my things that get lost all the time, the glasses of water I leave everywhere. I wrote last time about my laziness in the house. I read it before I started writing this blog post. And I quote, "I’m too lazy to do anything. My mom does everything anyway." Well, now she can't do anything. Because she takes care of us too much, she exhausted herself. She couldn't walk for days, or even weeks now. When Tatay spent weeks in the hospital, Mama was there to take care of him. She wasn't able to do her usual chores in the house. When Tatay was able to get back to the house, Mama was greeted with a mountain big pile of laundry. She spent the next two days straight to finish that job. That's when the pain got unbearable. She was diagnosed with cramped nerves on the hips from too much laundry work. Laundry here doesn't mean putting the soiled clothes in a washing machine, adding powdered soap and so on. What made it painful is the low chair she uses as she handwashes all our clothes one by one. Too much. How could I be so insensitive. "My mom does everything anyway." How can I say that. The only thing I do is sleep, eat, watch TV, go online, study, go to the mall... And there she was doing the laundry, washing the dishes, ironing, cleaning the room, cooking, even watching over my baby cousin. I'm about to cry earlier in the hospital thinking, why is it that whenever any one in the family gets sick, may it be her father, her brother, her child, anyone, she was always there, on our bedside in the hospital, taking care of us. Why is it that when it is her time to be there, almost no one ever visits her. She doesn't deserve that. I'm just glad my father, the jerk that he is when it comes to being a faithful husband, is there with her today. I really do appreciate that he's spending his time with her. He hasn't gone home since she got confined. For days now, I've been cleaning the house and washing the dishes everyday, taking care of things around here. I did the laundry once together with Jhoanne. That was before the ungrateful labandera came. I ironed the clothes yesterday and today. I bought some groceries. Mother stuff. I do these things without being told. I do it because I'm guilty. Guilty of making her suffer. Guilty of taking her forgranted. Guilty of being lazy. Guilty of being a bad daughter. I know I'm not doing it the same rate and quality she does it. It's hard. It's really hard to do those things everyday. It's true what I heard one time on TV, if a mother gets paid for what she does, she would be a richer than her husband. Being a full time mom is hard. Specially with my mother's age, she's not getting any younger. When she was still at home and couldn't walk, she stood up to wash the dishes. When she was still at home lying on the bed all the time, she didn't get me to do anything for her until I offer myself to do something. She a mom of a kind. And I was too unappreciative of what she does. Her care goes beyond being tactile. It's like it even goes beyond to being a mother. What does being a mother mean anyway? I always thought that Mama pampers us too much. That in the future, when I have a child of my own, I wouldn't pamper her the way Mama spoiled us. I would make my children independent. If I do that, would they care less of me as I care for Mama this much? Mama. She's incredible. You know what, this is the first time she got confined in the hospital for a reason other than childbirth. It's not as if she has a terrible disease. *knock on wood* I hope it never gets to that point. But it hurts so much. To see what we have caused her. What I, being the eldest child have caused her, for not helping her with the chores. For being too dependent. For being too lazy. I'm so bothered with what happened. I couldn't study. What happens when she gets home? Papa she couldn't handwash anymore. That we need to wash our clothes on our own. It's gonna be hard to juggle it with my studies as I've never done that before in my life. It's gonna be really really hard for me but I just got to do it. She's my mother and I love her so much. I'm so sorry for giving her so much pain.

Lord, please forgive me. Please keep her safe. Make us always remember the mothers who take extra effort to take care of us hands on. Lord, I hope that this challenge will make our family stronger and closer to you. Allow us to take care of her as she has with us all our lives. She deserves all the best in the world for being the mother that she is to us. Lord, please take good care of her. Thank You! Amen.

I love you Mama.^^

"Everyday is a happy day!":p