[30 Days] Your parents, in great detail

In 1989, I was born to Rose and Noel.

They were a young couple for a little over 8 years before I came into this world. They were each other's first loves, and it was a relationship that started in high school.

I used to believe that this was the standard of a love that might last forever. Now, I don't know how a Virgo father and a Scorpio mother stayed together for 34 long, turbulent years together.

My mother, Rose, was the fifth child in seven siblings. She grew up with an average middle-class family and as the apple of the eye of her doting father.

Caring, selfless and obedient, she could never say no to her family. She cared for her youngest brother, who had Down syndrome, from the day he was born until the day he died.

My mother was a docile lamb who was content to be told what to do, and she never questioned her father's authority. It was obvious that she regarded him as higher than her husband.

When I was very young, I found her beautiful and vivacious. She glowed like a summer day when she put on her makeup and perfume. Her friends always loved her because she was always so jolly and fun to be with.

Even after becoming a mother of four children, she could always pass off as a younger woman. We always got mistaken for sisters as I grew up.

Her secret was simple: Always be grateful and live by the day. She doesn't stress out, and she's always smiling, so the years simply slide off her face.

I am my mother's best friend before her daughter. I'm her confidant, her secret-keeper. We get along so well in so many things because our tastes are so similar.

I am pretty proud to say that we often smoke cigarettes and drink beers together whenever I come home like it's a sorority night. She is the first person I contact when I have good news and the last person I tell whenever I'm going through a rough patch. I never forget that she is my mom even if she forgets that I'm her kid.

What I admire most about her is her lifelong contentment in being a housewife and mother. It is so rare and beautiful to find a woman who is happy to be a mother, aunt and caretaker. She is always great with children, and she loves babies.

Growing up, she managed 12 kids, my cousins and my siblings plus me, under the same roof with finesse, so it's amazing that by the end of the summer, we were all still in one piece.

Even if her kids, nieces and nephews had grown up and flown out of the nest, they still regarded her with the highest respect and love because she'd cared for them wholeheartedly. My mother is the most beloved aunt by my cousins, and they all have a healthy relationship with her.

It is my mother who taught me to endure and to be resilient. She is like the bamboo that bends and sways with the winds of adversity, yet she never breaks.

Not even when she and my father separated when I was almost 26 years old.

My father, on the other hand, failed at a lot of things, including fatherhood. I'm sure that he did his best, but it still wasn't enough to compensate for the issues that I had. Anyway, I don't mean that he was a bad father. He's just not the best one.

But my father had a hard life, unlike my mom. He was the eldest of five sons, and he was already helping out in the family business, a butcher's shop, as a kid.

His mother suffered from cancer from his teens until her death in 1989, so the burden of raising 4 boisterous boys was left to him. My paternal grandfather was a World War II veteran who smoked, drank and never showed any affection to his sons, so I'm guessing that's the parenting model that he adopted.

When I was growing up, my father was rarely home. He worked as an enlisted soldier, so he was often away for work. I didn't miss him that much, and I was often afraid of him because he would hit us whenever we acted like kids.

My father instilled a firm sense of duty into us as we grew up. He always emphasized the importance of family, your duty to family and your honor.

He made sure that we woke up very early on weekends to clean the house, learn to cook and wash the clothes, all before lunchtime. He always cooked for us, and he is an awesome cook.

I honed my cooking skills under his eye, and I admit that I still miss his pancit bihon sometimes. I became an obedient, capable and skillful wife because he used to say that he didn't want me to be embarrassed in my future household. He wanted us to be ready for real life. Thanks, Papa. You were right.

But he was still the big man of the house who wouldn't quit smoking, drinking and gambling like any military man.

Those things were more important to him than raising children and saving money so they would have comfortable lives.

He always thought that since I'm such an obedient daughter, I could step up as the pillar of the household. I could take up his responsibility and smile while doing it. No wonder I started acting out so early.

Unfortunately, my father picked up a disgusting drug habit that led him to leave our family in 2016. Our family was torn up into pieces when they formally separated in 2016.

I used to hate him so much. But I've already forgiven him, and I've moved past it. I'm trying to recover our relationship. I'm trying to mend his relationship with my own siblings.

It's like holding jagged mirror pieces and trying to piece them back together, but I'm oblivious to the fact that I'm getting hurt and my palms are bleeding.

My father died in 2020. I am still grieving him to this day. My grief for him changed shape into a tiny wound that still catches me unaware with pain on a random day.

When I'm making dinner, I get random thoughts like, "I ought to call Papa. He'll know how to make this taste better."

When I have something funny to share, I think, "Papa will find this funny." We had the same sense of humor.

When I'm in desperate need of comfort from my marriage or life troubles, I think, "I wish Papa were here and still in the next subdivision. I wish Papa would talk to my husband and scare him. I wish... I wish that he's still here."

When I'm down and sad, I play "Beautiful Girl" by Jose Mari Chan because that was my lullaby. That was our song. I was the pearl in his hand, and I was his precious daughter.

As for my mother, well, she's in her sixties now and still in robust health. She has her amigas (friends), hobbies, dogs and a peaceful life. She deserves that.

In spite of all this, I am still grateful to my parents for loving me regardless of my bad decisions and my crazy notions. A relationship between a child and a parent is like the bond between hands and feet. Not always touching, but always connected.

I understand that they just want the best for me and my siblings.

I will always love them, no matter what. Even if our relationship wasn't perfect and my upbringing wasn't the best, I still want to think that I grew up loved. I was their precious child.

Every day, I just think, one day at a time.

Just like what my mother taught me.