What we really want to say on Mother’s Day

Every year in May we pay our respects to our mothers in an overly commercialized Sunday, where florists jack up their prices, restaurants offer buffets, and husbands decide to let their wives sleep in. Kids plan breakfasts in bed and arrange heart-shaped pancakes on a plate, all to say “Thank you” to the mother figure in the home and to let her have her day.

Something tells me that while mothers are appreciative of kind and sweet gestures, our sentiments actually go beyond these tangible things that take the place of words.

Here are just a few things those flowers, presents, and Sunday lunches cannot say:

1. I’m sorry. 

I’m sorry for being a jerk sometimes, for screening your calls, or for rushing through our conversation whenever we do get to speak. Ang kulit mo kasi e! You keep nagging me about whether I’ve eaten or why I’m still awake. I’m not a baby anymore, but I forget that while I’m all grown up, I’ll always be your baby and checking up on me will always be your job. 

Sorry for the attitude when you offer some life guidance that I often perceive as interference with my affairs. Sorry for disagreeing with you, for hurting your feelings when I don’t follow your advice, or when I try to stand up for myself. I don’t mean to hurt you, and I hope you know that sometimes my discovery of my own way just doesn’t come out right. It doesn’t mean you are wrong, but that I need to find out for myself what my own decisions will bring me, even if it results in my pain and regret.

2. I need you.

I know that I’ve spent so much of my time trying to prove to you that I can make it on my own, that I don’t need you to always stand by me and watch my every move. I know it’s hard to believe that the kid you raised and taught all you know suddenly insists she knows more than you, and now doesn’t want to be helped with anything at all. I’m not saying my way is better, but that you taught me well enough that now I know how to do it and want to try.

I do need you in my life, and the time will come when I will come to you for guidance and I hope you’ll still be there. Sometimes I wish I could run to you like a baby and hide in your body and ask you to protect me from the world like you’ve done so many times. But I’ve gotten too big and too prideful for that, and probably won’t admit my helplessness anymore. That doesn’t mean I don’t need you. I do need you, in the same primal way I’ve needed you since I was born. But my distance is also my way of honoring you and telling you what great a job you’ve done.

3. I love you.

Everything I know about love – its devotion, stubbornness, honesty, and generosity – I’ve learned from you. Every time I say “I love you” to someone else, it’s a manifestation of how well you loved me. So I want to make sure I also tell you that I love you, in the way you’ve taught me how to love. It’s without condition and with faithfulness and loyalty. I love you because all the love you’ve given me has given me a surplus and made it possible for me to give it back.

4. Thank you.

I don’t say it often, but I really would be nothing without you. You have, and continue to be, the one constant thing in my life. I hope you know how grateful I am for your daily devotion to me. Even if sometimes I say it’s too much, I know that you’re only doing your job.

You do it so well that it inspires me to do my job to be a strong and independent adult and to show you that I can stand on my own.

While my independence is my way of saying “Thank you,” I know that you still need to hear it. So thank you, Nanay, for all you have done done, for feeding me and clothing me, for being my biggest fan, and for giving me all you could give so I could be the best that I could be.

Thank you, mothers of the world, for simply being around. Happy Mother’s Day! – Rappler.com 

Shakira Andrea Sison is a Palanca Award-winning essayist. She currently works in finance and spends her non-working hours puntasizing in subway trains. She is a veterinarian by education and was managing a retail corporation in Manila before relocating to New York in 2002. Her column appears on Thursdays. Follow her on Twitter: @shakirasison and on facebook.com/sisonshakira.

Daughter whispering to Mother image via Shuttersock