It’s my mother’s birthday day in a few days, so she has been on my mind alot.
Mom is a unique spirit. The daughter of a Filipino Congresswoman and an celebrated American surgeon, she grew up both between the Far East and here in the US. She has a romantic streak in her which took flame in the 60s and 70s-as a young woman she was a concert promoter for bands like Peter Paul and Mary and was something of a singer herself.
My mother was abandoned by my biological father before my birth. She would remarry, a Brit, when I was 4. They would later have 5 girls, my sisters all younger, with whom we sailed around the world 3 times in ships we built overselves. While this is story for another day-those adventures were rich, yes but also harrowing. She would later lead a much more conventional life, married to a US American diplomat.
In her life now she solely dedicates her time raising my younger sisters, challenging lasses in my brotherly opinion, as well as full time care of one of my sisters who is mentally ill. The truth is, I feel like she has been robbed some of personal freedom and happiness for being such an endless caretaker. I urge her constantly to be selfish and enjoy her vital years seeing and exploring the world in the way I know she still wants to.
Whenever we’re in the room together with other people the only sensation I can describe is that we’re sharing a secret. The storms we sailed through, the snow we braved while building boats and the pirates we sometimes escaped are hard memories to bury and hard to explain to “normal” people.
But there is a part of her I own, a special window before she remarried when it was just her and I till I was 4. She’d sing full of heart and soul and I’d sit nearby. This is the sound of my youth. This is the sound of my mother.
