In Honour of My Mother, Barbara G. Kato

(Began: Thursday, November 23, 2017)

    When I posted news about mom’s passing on my Facebook page two days ago, I was overwhelmed by the number of people who took the time to express their sympathies, affection, and condolences to me and our family on this occasion. One comment from a dear friend somehow stood out and struck me in a particular way. It said: “We didn’t know her but we can see her beautiful legacy in you, in your family, and in your lives.”

    This prompted me to think of mom, her life and that “beautiful legacy” which, my dear friend perceptively pointed out, lives on in us who are her children, her extended family or friends. Of course, I had to start with my earliest memories of those years in which I was most closely bonded with her as a child. I admit, it does begin to feel so hard jogging my memory at 52 years old and going back some 40 plus years to the time of the formative childhood years that I spent almost always by mom’s side.

    However, when I set myself to do this in earnest, faced with the stark reality of her death, the memories came flooding back …

Bonding

    I remember, first of all, the times I spent, curiously enough, lying with her on her large bed in the master’s bedroom. Mom was an incurable insomniac all her life. She could not sleep until the wee hours of the morning and, hence, would usually wake up late in the morning. I remember myself often climbing up on the bed, snuggling with her, cuddling, being caressed and … either talking-listening or just treasuring the warmth of my mother’s presence. Those tender moments are just unforgettable.

    I also remember often helping her prepare to go somewhere. For a while during my childhood, I was some kind of “personal attendant” to her. I don’t remember thinking of this as onerous. In fact, I kind of liked it, maybe because it was another precious moment of bonding with my mother. I would do things such as getting the right jewelry she wanted to wear on different occasions, count out the needed money she had to bring, assist her to try on different dresses, sometimes talking, sometimes in silence, always with the sound of the various radio programs she was listening to in the background … but all the time deepening the bond we had with each other.

    Those precious moments of bonding in effect taught me what love and friendship are all about. I have never found it difficult to have friends, to maintain deep and meaningful relationships, to build community and networks. In retrospect, I now realize that those qualities were born and implanted in me through the deep bonding I had with this dear mother of mine.

Going Places

    I remember also that for a while during my childhood, she always took me with her to different places. This was, I’m sure, before I went to school. One place stands out among the rest – the Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Baclaran (in Manila) where, for a while, she diligently went every Wednesday to do the Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. I would often be there with her, praying, lighting candles, singing, listening to the priest’s sermon. Through these occasions, I first learned the importance of seeking after human depth and transcendence, the surest ways that, I deeply believe, could lead one to God. That lesson has always stayed very strongly with me throughout my life and has led me to enter a religious order, become a priest, engage in ministry for a while. That search for depth and transcendence, I will clearly say here, also led me to resign from the priesthood to seek a different path of spirituality. However, the seeds planted by mommy have grown into a lifelong study of and engagement with religion and spirituality.

   Back to my childhood … We would also go to other places – the market in Baclaran, Cartemar or Divisoria to shop. After the Wednesday novena, we would often eat at Max Restaurant beside the Shrine-Church, hence, my absolute loyalty to Max Fried Chicken was born and lasts to this very day as my wife, Del, and Filipino friends can testify. We would go on other excursions: to the zoo, to some exotic waterfall or just to nearby places on—what she called—paseos or short excursions. We would often be with other people – my siblings, my lola (her mother, when she was living with us), relatives, even my childhood friends.

Discipline

    I remember vividly the times when she would discipline me, scold me and even administer “the branch” on my butt for really serious offences (recall that these were different times when parents in the Philippines could and deemed that they should administer corporal punishment). I seemed to have been a headstrong and at times even wild kid, prompting some of our relatives to warn mommy ominously, “this kid is going to be a criminal.”

    The worst I recall was throwing a stone at the head of my nanny when we were playing hide-and-go-seek and she was about to find me in my hiding place. Blood gushed out of the wound on her head and she almost lost her consciousness. Yes, I got “the branch” for that. After such serious infractions, she would make me kneel in front of the image of Jesus with his Sacred Heart to say sorry for the “terrible thing” I’d done.

Apologizing

    Throughout my life, I have always deeply believed and have taught to others, especially to my daughter, that one should take responsibility for one’s actions, the highest form of which is having the courageous humility to admit honestly when one is wrong and to apologize for it. I think I can say in all honesty that when I realize I’m wrong, I make it a point to apologize. Where’d I learn that? Now, I know even more clearly that it was drilled into me by mom through these “disciplinary measures” of my childhood.

Money

    I remember the money training. She would entrust me and my siblings with money with the instruction to buy what we requested and that she had agreed to but nothing more. She expected us to be totally honest and return the exact change to her without fail.

Hiligaynon

    I remember growing up to the sound of her native Hiligaynon language. I think mommy was dyslexic in languages. She just found it hard to learn new ones. This resulted in the fact that although she had lived in Manila for many, many years, she could not speak Tagalog straight. When I was growing up, the language at home that I heard from her was her native language, Hiligaynon. I think that we learned Hiligaynon before we learned Tagalog, the language of the Manila-area where we grew up. This turned out to be another blessing-in-disguise for me because it exposed me to yet another language in an already crowded cacophony of languages I came in contact with growing up – English, Tagalog, Hiligaynon and some Japanese. Thus, I learned to treasure the multiplicity of cultures and languages early on in life.

Mommy’s Rule

    I remember very clearly the absolute rule of mommy – never answer back to your elders, and this extended strongly to your older siblings. The practical consequence of that was, if you had a complaint against someone older than yourself, you had to complain to her: You could never ever answer back to your older sibling, even if you thought you were right. Mommy’s rule would seem harsh and nonsensical to many nowadays but behind that rule lies the deeply entrenched very Asian and very Filipino value of respecting your elders. And to add the proverbial cherry on top to this business, in all seriousness, I do not recall a single time when we siblings would “quarrel” with each other seriously when we were growing up. That rigid hierarchical order spared us from the bitter sibling arguments that bedevil many families. The concept was just plainly foreign to us.

Tender, Loving Care

    I remember mommy’s TLC (tender, loving care) when we fell ill, as we often did in an age when we didn’t get too many vaccinations. Chicken pox, measles, mumps … you name it, we got it all. For me at that time though, feeling terribly ill was always assuaged by the fact that when you fell ill, you’d be the special recipient of tender motherly care. Her prescriptions were simple: bed rest, lugaw (our Filipino version of Congee) with egg or katsuo-boshi (Japanese dried bonito flakes) or ume-boshi (Japanese preserved plums). I remember particularly that when the fever was exceptionally high, you were subjected to her “sponge baths” in order to bring the fever down. They were generally quite effective for me.

    I distinctly recall once being miserably ill and waking up in the middle of the night because of the discomfort that often accompanies sickness. As I rubbed my eyes and tried to figure out my condition, I see mommy’s figure in the dim room, lying almost in a fetal posture at the foot of the bed. As it turns out, she had fallen asleep at the foot of the bed while monitoring my condition. How long was she there? I don’t know to this day. What I remember is that, in my boyish mind, I thought with much relief that I was going to be OK … because my mother was taking such good care of me. That’s the closest I could get in my boyhood experience to the experience of unconditional love. Looking back, I remember that, despite feeling terribly ill, the vision of her lying at the foot of the bed was such a comfort.

    I share some of those vignettes from my childhood because in the 12 years that I spent almost always by mommy’s side or strongly in the shadow of mommy’s presence (“12 years” because at 13, I entered the minor seminary-boarding school and effectively left home as a result of that), I now realize that Mommy bequeathed to me so many precious things that were implanted in me, grew and became part of my mother’s “beautiful legacy” that continues to live in me, in my siblings, in all of us who were fortunate to be touched by her during her earthly sojourn.

Parenthood

    Mommy was many things during her long 85 years of life: a wife, an entrepreneur, a lover of animals, a socialite, a shop owner, and so on and so forth. But the most important role and even vocation she had—from my perspective—was to be a mother. And in that role has she arguably left her most important and most beautiful legacy – in us, her children and grandchildren.

    At the end of the day, I think I will say that, for us who are parents, our most important legacy will be how we spend those crucial formative years in which we have our children in the closest form of bonding with us --- namely, the first 12 to 15 years. There and then, we will be able to impart to our children love, discipline, responsibility, etc., values that will shape them for the rest of their lives. This is almost always an undoubtedly “make or break,” even “life or death” matter.

    When I recall my most formative years, it’s the figure of mommy that dominates – what a figure it was! Despite all her flaws, she gave us love, discipline, a sense of the transcendent, responsibility, and so forth.  These are her most important gifts; these form part of her beautiful legacy.

    To become more personal here, (let me address this to you now) I know, mommy, that when I resigned from the priesthood, you were not pleased at first. You had become comfortable with the idea that your son (honored by so many people then because of so-called “priestly dignity”) would continue all the way in such a state. Life is full of surprises! I just want to tell you today that, very ironically, it was when I left the priesthood, got married and had my own child that I began to TRULY understand your most important roles and legacies – that of being a spouse and that of parenthood.

    In particular, I now realize that the love that binds parent and child is quite absolute. The first time I looked at my daughter, your granddaughter, Keitlyn Hajime, it was then that I began to understand – as if for the first time – what absolute love was all about. That day I thought, I would do everything, even gladly sacrifice my life for this, my child. So, very ironically, for all my reflecting and talking about love and parenthood during my years as a priest, it was when I quit the priesthood that I finally began to learn experientially what absolute love is all about! In other words, this was when I began to understand YOU AND YOUR LOVE in a better, more experiential way. THE IRONIES OF LIFE!

    I know that your love for us, your children, was just … absolute. There’s no other way to describe it! You may have done things that we disliked and even hated. But, in retrospect, now I know that your heart was in the right place. Whatever you did, you did because you loved us.

    From the depths of my heart, I’d like to say: Thank you, mommy! We will sorely miss you. Rest in everlasting peace. Give daddy our love. Continue to guide us in spirit as we continue this adventure we call life. And we trust that we will be reunited with you again, hopefully, in a more enlightened way. But we trust we will also continue to encounter you in many ways again and again in this life.

Your loving son,

Julius-Kei (“Toto”)