Eulogy for Lilia

As a child, the fondest memory I have of my mother was when I was about eight or nine years old. She took me to her workplace one day, and we passed by a tree that was overgrown with bougainvilla vines in full bloom. The wind picked up, and the flowers were carried by the wind, and they started to dance around the air before falling to the ground. I stopped, mesmerized, and looked up at the sky. She let me watch the flowers fall, and I looked at her, standing tall amidst all the flowers dancing through the air. After a few moments, she held her hand out and we continued to walk, careful not to step on the flowers that are now on the ground.

As a teenager and a high schooler, I was her big problem. My sister was always responsible and was a good child - me, not so much. I would come home late from a friend's house where we would play the guitar or read magazines until 11:00 PM, and she would get angry at my hours. That continued on to college, but she still sent me to school, provided for me, still let me in the house no matter what time I came home. When I graduated college she said she felt like a thorn was removed from her side. Having freshly graduated, I was an adult. I think maybe she thought I would then start making more responsible decisions. Maybe I did, because she was proud of me, even when I was the kind of child I was. 

As an adult, I went on about my life. She never questioned my decisions or challenged them; she just continued to be proud of me. I left Baguio to go to work in Manila, and she went to live with my sister here. Maybe once a month I would go here to visit, where she would always welcome me with a big hug.

Her cancer started maybe about seven years ago, when my mother felt a lump in her armpit. Maybe even before then. Of course, her being who she was, it wasn't until much later that she told us, when she felt another lump on her right breast. She didn't tell us that, either. She was who she was, meaning, she considered pain more of a nuisance rather than anything else.

That's why when her arm started developing lymphedema, she still continued doing everyday things for a long time. The lymphedema developed gradually, over the course of three years, but earlier, when it became more and more of a cause for worry, she went to see a clinic in Baguio City, the head doctor of whom ordered an ultrasound and x-ray. The doctor sat me and my mother down one appointment day and told us what it was. Metastatic breast cancer, maybe stage 3. My mother said she already knew what it was. My mother didn't cry. I started to, but then she said, "I'm not crying, why are you crying?"

She continued going to the clinic, and I remember going to the Baguio bus station twice a month to get her from the La Union bus to that Baguio clinic, where she would be put under a machine that lights up for two hours. She would get so tired after those sessions. My mother would then go to her sister's - my aunt's - house after therapy, and they would spend the day talking together. My aunt tells me they would talk the afternoon away, laughing together. My mother would then go back here the day after.

She didn't want surgery. She was adamant about that.

Fast forward to about a month ago, and she's still doing everyday things. She recently found a new hobby, rhinestone art, suggested by my sister. She has completed around eight large pieces of it, dooting the small stones onto the sticky paper with her left hand. She left one uncompleted piece, one of a large cat in a basket of eggs. It was a gift from her office friends on her birthday, which she celebrated last month. She is 79 years old.

Every morning, before she got admitted to the hospital fourteen days ago, I would wake up to my sister serving her breakfast, or showing her something funny on the phone. Sometimes I hear my sister's laugh as something funny went on, and I would go about my day and my turn looking after her. She would alternate between being in bed or in front of the table, dooting away. Sometimes I doot with her, and we would tell each other stories, or laugh at something on the radio. She couldn't stand or walk alone, so sometimes she and my sister, or I, would march around the house, saying, "Hep, hep, hep." She would be so tired after that.

She had fluid drained from her lungs at the hospital, and when the operation was done, I looked at her, widened my eyes in an anime fashion and stuck out my tongue, and she did the same as the porters slid her bed back to her room. When she got discharged from the hospital, she was so weak she couldn't complete the rhinestone cat and would just lay in bed. She died shortly after being discharged.

She was a great mother. She provided for us and cared for us every single day. She was a great woman, strong, solid, steadfast. She was a great person, caring, friendly, agreeable. She was a great human being, and she will be missed very dearly.

For me, I will always see her standing underneath that tree with the bougainvilla vines, surrounded by flowers being carried around by the wind, dancing in the air for a long time. For me, she is immortal. I love you, ma.