Celebrating Mother's Day by Struggling without Mom

It's MOther's day today and people would be treating their mothers. I, well, am offering my mother something today but I don't know if she's amenable to it.


I grew up without my mother. Yep, my grandmother and aunts raised me. My mom was so busy working for GMA 7 CEO Atty. Gozon and his companies that I was left to the care of my grandmother. Everything I know, everything I am right now and every single belief I still have, I owe it to my grandmother.


Two years ago, my grandmother whom I call "nanay" died. It was painful. When I was just a teenager, I vowed that I'll die before my grandma. It was'nt meant to be. I went on to live but every single day, I think about her. She lies in one of the mountains of Antipolo.


I want to live because of my kids. I want them to grow with their mother and their father beside them. I don't want them to grow like what happened to me. 


All that I am right now, I got thru hard work. I did'nt use any of my friend's names to get employed nor did I ask any favor from anybody about money or anything like that. 


I experienced walking along the busy streets of Makati hungry and without money. I experienced sleeping in one of the rooms at the University of the Philippines-Diliman with just my backpack and a little cot. I also experienced sleeping at one of the dirtiest motel rooms in Quiapo, and roamed throughout the Philippines without ample money.


I started with nothing. Whatever I got from my scholarships during my university days, I saved up and that financed my two years away from the University. I financed my post-graduate and law studies through sheer hard work, patience and a little bit of luck.


My real mom does not know about this. She thinks that I survived without any problems. That's the opposite. I literally tried every single thing, learned more about the world through experience and survived every single day with sheer belief in God and my destiny.


I always believed that I'm destined to do great things and die with glory. If God will allow me to live as old as sixty, then, I'll die teaching the young whatever I learned from life. I will not tire teaching other people because I'm not like Manny Pacquiao. I don't have tons of money with me. The only treasures I have, these are imbedded in my brain. 


Mother's day and Father's day, really, are meaningless days for me. How will you celebrate these days without any single one of them present?


The lesson I learned from God is simple---create your own. And every single day, I strive very hard to be a responsible parent to my growing kids. NOw, if God will not allow me to live as long as the others, then, I might as well prepare them for my eventual demise early on so that they will not experience what I've experienced in my life.


Happy Mother's day.