"Bella" the mother
An orphan from the barrio, who lived and survived from the help of close relatives. Found a fitting job until she got married and settled down, had 3 fine-looking normal kids, and shaped a typical pastoral family. To me, my most ideal depiction of my mother is that she is “customary”. A mother who doesn’t know how to cook simply because she is too occupied with the condition of her taxing job. She got sick in fact because of too much exposure to numerous hospital patients that she was attending. So luckily, she recovered from that illness and got back to work until she retired with flying colors. During those early years though, my mother once in a while proudly presented at least to me a special dish she told me she learned from her “lolo”. “Ginisang saging na saba”. She taught me how to play “mah-jong” that I later realized my father is so addicted to it that I frequently, upon my mother’s advice asked him to break off and go home. Thank God, I never...