I have so many fond memories of August back in the days when our mother was still with us. For one, August isg the time of Kadayawan, only one of the city’s two major festivals (with Araw ng Dabaw as the other). Being a former regional director of a
government office, she had always been a regular participant in the city’s activities during the said festival. Even when she eventually retired and returned to writing daily columns (and also acted as the publisher of a local paper), she never let up, always religious in covering the festival goings-on and attending its many events.
Only known to us and a few, during that time, one of the reasons she was always excited to attend was the dress-up part of it all. It just so happens, a long-time friend and famous local couturier was always glad to gift her with meticulously-decorated
garbs and coats which never failed to transform her into being like a little girl, overly joyous over dresses. These, she would proudly parade before us, her captive audience, before she headed out for the evening.
Happy as all that was, the month of August suddenly took on a darker shade when on the 13 th of that month in the year 2007, amid Kadayawan celebrations, she passed away peacefully in our home
Since that time, the festivities of the month meant very little to us. Now, my momentary glimpses of how happy were those times are when I occasionally see my partner and some of her great-grandchildren wearing some of her clothes, bequeathed to them by her when she was still healthy, while the rest had been distributed years later after her passing.
Through the years, I must have written about many aspects of mom, I am constantly reminded I should collate them all, if only as an attempt to capture her total being and how she is missed by everyone in the family. In this new perspective of her which I reveal, her being almost childlike in her penchant for pretty dresses, is a good enough counter weight to the deep and serious person she also was, particularly in her love for us and her work. It’s been 18 years mom, and we still have to retrieve and recapture all that you were to us, including all the moments with you. Sometimes, I could vividly see you and hear your voice in my dream state. In my waking hours, I’ve so many snippets
of memories and conversations I always replay in my mind, as though they were little soundtracks that have become part of my day. Of course and more important, whenever I see the sequined-Alfonsos my partner wears for Mondays, I see you and that smile I’ll never forget.
