Memories of Nanay, sweet and funny
by Thelma Telan Coralde
Just to inform you my mother passed away last Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2006. Mely and my daughter Cherry are there to prepare for her 100th year but the Lord called her one week away from her day. The invitation for her centennial was already out so that anticipated joy was turned into mourning. It is still a celebration of LIFE for in life or in death we are the Lord's. I can't make it because the 19 hour plane ride is an ordeal for me with my allergy activated by the bizzarre temp.eprature these days.
Anyway my two-year stay there (Nov. 2003 to Sept. 2005) was the best chance the Lord gave me to be with her everyday except when I slipped to the city for a brief visit to my grandchildren. The rest of those two years were with my mother, days spent at her side, talking sweet nothings in between her bout of memory lapses and lucid moments). The memories I keep of her are sweet and funny (my sense of humor made her laughed and at times she would blurt out of the blue "Sino naman ang nanay mo?" and then I would say " aba ay si Pining (her name) and she with wonder asked "anak ko baga ikaw?" ay si Thelma nga pala. Dalaga ka na" and many of that sort of conversation filled those two years with her. I fed her with her favorite soups, beverage and cakes, dressed her daily in her sundress etc. I love to remember her that way -- not in a coffin, serious and lifeless.
So God in His wisdom willed I stayed and keep the treasured memories of a good mother. God graced her 100 years on earth with gifts of various colors; joy and pain, triumph and failures, family members of various coats, friends and relatives and ordinary experiences that were made extraordinary by her living faith in a Good God and undying devotion to the Blessed Mother. We, her children cannot ask for more. My father who went ahead 20 years ago must be happy for their reunion in our eternal home. Her death is one I always pray for... a peaceful death. She was given her dinner by my two sisters, dressed for the night and then she just said: "Matutulog na ako" and off she went peacefully.