By Annabelle Marcelo

The author’s mother, Magdalena Aglipay circa 1930 at age 16.

I cannot remember the exact last moment I saw my mother, but I know where.  We were at the airport in Manila.  Mama and a sizable coterie of kin stood in a fenced area for watching travelers depart.  I was by myself on stairs leading to the door of a Pan American World Airways airplane, dwarfed in size by its blade propellers.  I was only 11 that early January in 1959. 

As a mother myself now, I grasp the enormity of what Mama must have felt. I was off to the United States, where I would live with my mother’s younger sister. I was not being sent away or leaving home because of any misfortune. Quite simply, I was a child enamored of going wherever, giving scant thought about leaving and what that would imply. 

The notion of my going to California was hatched the prior year, 1958.  My aunt, who had emigrated from the islands, came home for a visit.  She may have casually said, “Maybe you could come see me someday.” The gadabout in me interpreted Auntie’s sentence as, “You must come and live with me soon.”

My mother, who had never been off Luzon Island, gave me an affinity for the global. Mama was a typist for the Philippine government’s Bureau of Plant Industry.  Her job had occasional international contacts, many through the mail. Beginning from when I was in kindergarten, Mama would clip cancelled foreign postage stamps from envelopes and bring them home to me.

Her colleagues from the bureau’s ornamental-horticulture section gave Mama greenhouse flowers native to foreign lands. Vases of these brightened our living room. Once in a while, she went beyond postage and flowers:  Mama brought home people from other countries to dine with us.

In this age of incessant electronic communication, it may be hard to fathom that my mother and I did not – as in never – talk on the telephone after I left her side.  Overseas calls at the time were prohibitively costly; they were not a regular part of life for ordinary people such as us.  We wrote letters too infrequently.  As children do, I adjusted quickly enough to my new world in Southern California.  I coped with homesickness by being immersed in school and friendships.  My Americanized adolescence was normal for this country but became incomprehensible to my mother.  Yet through the years, she expressed satisfaction that I was healthy and stayed on the academic honor roll. 

Circumstances prevented my traveling back to the Philippines, while my mother remained there for the rest of her life. She died after a stroke in 1969, in Manila, at age 52. 

Sometimes when I look into a mirror, I recognize my mother’s facial features or expressions in my own reflection.  Oh, what I would give to truly see Mama again!

About the author: Ana Marcelo is a freelance writer and editor.  Born in the Philippines, she grew up in Southern California. She lives in Sacramento.