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“Mothers are like glue. Even when you can’t see them, they’re still holding the family together.”
Susan Gale

She was 75. She had me at 20. So, she was lent to us by our gracious God for 55 years and I said “thank you for the 55 years of loving me.” This was the gist of our last conversation on my birthday when she greeted me 10 days before her last breath. She was already sick at that time but we were hopeful that she would get well as we always looked at her as ageless.

She had me at 20. She became a widow at 39. We had her until 3 months after she turned 75.

No one is really too old to lose a mother. Losing a mother leaves a vacuum in the family no one can fill. For the 4 of us siblings, she was our home – literally and figuratively. Despite our invitations to stay with any one of us, she opted to stay in the home she and my father built together before he passed on 35 years ago. She was someone who never imposes her being mother on us. We could genuinely be ourselves with her and she would just smile listening intently to our stories of adventures and misadventures.

A celebrated moment on a Christmas that we were complete after almost 30 years since Anne (2nd from left) was living in the UAE.

While we did our best to give her the comfort she deserves in her old age without her having to ask, as she squeezed every penny she earned to fend for us when we were growing up, there are still regrets – we wish she could see what we are doing with the farm properties she along with our father passed on to us; we wish we could have brought her to more places when she was still stronger; we wish we could have visited her more before this pandemic happened; we wish we could have given more…the list goes on.

A sweet memory with her 2 grandchildren on her 72nd birthday

Family reunions will never be the same again

I am sure many can relate with me so for those whose parents are still around and who are blessed with the opportunity to show gratitude, go thank them, hug them if you can, be generous with them…while you still have them around.

God loves our mother so much that He took her to her final resting place where there is no more pain. Only eternal peace. And where she is welcomed by our dear father – the only love of her life.

As we promised, we will take care of each other. So long!

“The ultimate luxury is being able to relax and enjoy your home.”
~Jeff Lincoln

Attitude is everything and in such a situation as being forced to stay home for an extended period like what’s happening now with this pandemic, it’s either we wallow in frustration or we embrace it and for many including myself, we chose the latter.

So we settled in and “nested” – a condition that makes us do stuff for our home and in our home: decorating and redecorating it; purchasing things to re-create the “experience” we used to do outside but could not do now like fine dining, reading a book at a cafe, going to the salon, having a massage, watching a movie on the big screen and many more.

I moved around some pieces of furniture. This one used to be in a section at the garage which has been brought up to the balcony by five men as the daybed is very heavy.

To entertain ourselves, we looked for activities to do and new hobbies to be occupied with. Plantherapy trended giving birth to the monikers “plantitas and plantitos”. Photos of home-cooked food also flooded IG and FB (and I had many of these as well) and more tiktok videos uploaded.

I am no different. As a family whose weekend routine always included dining out and going to the malls, it was hard at first but we slowly got used to it. Saturdays became my movie days with my teenage daughter and we discovered that we both like watching true stories of sports icons and athletes as well as underdogs. My daughter loves to cook and bake so her dad and I were happy recipients of her experiments. The culinary skill of my niece was optimised too and my foray of the kitchen resulted to compliments from my husband and daughter. We realised that birthdays and anniversaries can be special too even if celebrated only at home. In fact, I like it more with celebrations that started with a special breakfast and ended with a fine dinner.

So I started buying pretty dining wares from the online marketplace to complete the fine dining experience at home and satisfy my shopaholic cravings. The Dalgona coffee and oatmeal cookies of my daughter became an afternoon treat and as the quarantine went into extension after extension, I went farther into re-creating the home experience. One luxury purchase I made, justified as a birthday gift to myself, was this wonderful Breville Home Barista Express https://www.breville.com.ph/the-barista-express that allowed me to make specialty coffees at home.

I joined the plant craze and started collecting different varieties of monstera, philodendron, aglaonema, fittonia, calathea and rubber trees and gained more knowledge as I researched on how to care for them and the benefits they bring to the home. Having this penchant for aesthetics, I went further deep into repotting my babies in lovely (and pricey…sigh) clay pots. Having these plants led me to reinvent some spaces in our home which now offer a more relaxed and refreshing vibe.

Some of my collections I call my “babies”

I also was finally able to start writing blogs which was something I wanted to do for sometime now but didn’t find the time to start.

When we go back to being able to do more of the going out stuff, I think it won’t be the same for me as this nesting have taught me the ultimate luxury of enjoying home.

Losing a Mother

That thing they call “nesting”…discovering (and rediscovering) the joys of staying home