(Editors’ note: The Courier is reprinting the columns of the late Atty. Benedicto T. Carantes as a tribute to one of its long-time columnists. This piece was published on May 14, 2017).
Only a few months back, it was a well-known pastry shop, with at least four outlets, including one at the Shell stopover in Bulacan, giving its neighbor, Café France, such stiff competition, forcing the latter to bring down its prices to bargain levels.
But the last I looked, Café France was still open for business, and I was told that “Moms” had closed shop.
Mercifully, that is not the case with all the moms in the world, who never run out of things to do, or as they say “A mother’s work is never done” – from breastfeeding newly born babies, changing diapers, washing, cooking, cleaning, keeping family together, and making sure the kids grow up right.
And when the blessings come, like a son graduating at the top of his class, or a daughter being crowned a beauty queen after placing first in the Board exams, it is dad who will claim all the glory, while mom is only too happy keeping to the background, thanking God for His kindness, a silent testimony to all her sacrifices.
Even working moms are not spared from housework, preparing breakfast and dressing up the kids before they head to school, if not driving them over because dad is too busy and too important for such a menial task.
Rushing back home from work to fix dinner, helping the little ones with their homework, the ever tireless mom still wants to know from her teen daughters and sons that everything is fine with the world – Jane not pregnant, nor is Junior about to become a father.
Mom is on his mind when a first born son gets to the top of the world, and mom is the last word on his lips when he jumps off a 20-story building because of business reverses.
And while it is dad who escorts daughter to the altar on her wedding day, she makes a meaningful thank you glance at mom before she loops an arm around the waiting arms of the new – and hopefully the last – man in her life.
They can sue me for libel, but without malice afterthought, mama’s boys other than myself are former city prosecutor Erdolfo Balajadia – Nana Oping’s favorite – Pablito Sanidad, on a roll with a daughter doctor, two boy lawyers, and one more daughter on her way to becoming one after UP Law.
So, is Rene Cortes, who sought comfort in his mother’s arms on the day he thought the world ended, and Nana Maura telling him that it was in fact the beginning of a new and (hopefully) more wonderful one.
Nothing compares to single moms being mom and dad to their kids, like the mom who did laundry work all her life while her son would walk a kilometer and a half every day to take a jeepney that would bring him to Edsa, where he would board a bus to Quezon Avenue, and still another bus ride to Diliman.
Graduating magna cum laude, even with so many other summas, he was UP President Pascual’s pick to deliver the valedictory address. Good choice, sir.
I pray the boy is doing well in real life.
Life is truly unfair. My driver, whose wa- ges I pay, while cruising along the road, regales me with stories about his two daughters who graduated from City High as valedictorian and salutatorian one year after the other, go on to finish their studies at UP, and now holding good paying jobs. He is modest enough to admit that it was their mom, from whom he has since separated, who brought them up right.
He brags, however, that the two took after him, since he was himself an honor student during his school years.
The day he will tell me that his first grandson is a precious, cute little tyke who resembles him almost carbon copy like, will be the day I fire him.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms, single, separated, happily married, and to my Minda, with fingers crossed and prayers in my heart, that she will be with me for sometime more.
Dear Blessed Mother, Dear God, please will it to be so.
