Scars

What does your scar say about you?  Does it tell about your adventurous childhood?  Your present athleticism?

What stories do they tell?  A tragic accident on the road? An argument gone wild?

A talent agent-photographer once told me. "You know you shouldn't just be a voice talent, you can actually pass for an on-cam talent, but you have a big scar over there (pointing to my temple)." As you can tell, she's a friend. Honest, no-holds-barred encouraging kind of a friend.

So I respond: Oh, that one.

She was one of the very few who have boldly asked me about that scar. Another time, I caught a friend's younger sister (aged 4 or 5 then) staring at me. As she drew closer and closer and uncomfortably closer to me, I asked her what's the matter. She replied with a query, "Bakit ka may bi-ak dyan? (pointing and touching the famous scar)"

Oh, that one.

Just the other week, my 3yo daughter did the same thing. But she was less brutal: "Nanay, what happened to that?  Why is there a hole there?" And like a Filipino, referred to it by pointing her lips towards the right side of my face.

Oh, that infamous one.

"You see, Miro," I recognized the window of opportunity, "when I was around your age, I disobeyed Mama.  I jumped and jumped on the sofa even if she told me not to. I lost my balance, fell and hit this part of my head on the corner of our glass table." She seemed stunned. I wonder if she felt the impact of the fall, or the impact of warning her not to disobey.

My mother pinched this wound of mine intending for the skin to naturally stick together again without any need for sutures. She stayed at it even as I slept through the afternoon,  She was afraid that if she took me to the hospital, the stitches would affect my right eye. I asked her, "You mean, they might touch a nerve and affect my sight?' "No," Mama was quick to correct me.  "The stitches and the scar might pull your eye and distort it, making it different from the other eye."

Oh, that wise mother of mine.

This is the same woman who tried to "naturally seal and heal" the cut on my palm when I tripped on the floor, breaking a ceramic tea cup I was holding. I was just a toddler then.  She told me how she painstakingly clamped my skin manually with her fingers throughout the day.

I have another scar on my left outer ankle. My playmate-neighbor was playing one-on-one "soccer" with me one afternoon. The game was called soccer by the neighborhood kids, but it was an outdoor group activity more like baseball.  You kick the ball and run across the perimeter of a diamond, touching three bases to get back to homebase.

I must've been around 10 or 11 then.  The ball went to this part of our yard which was covered with freshly-cut coconut leaves. As I was about to reach for the ball, I twisted my ankle and landed on a broken glass bottle. I remember it was a Sarsi (sarsaparilla) bottle. I don't know how I did it but I still managed to get the ball and go back to our play area.  When I checked my foot, I saw blood oozing from an open and what seemed to me, a very deep cut. I didn't know what to do so I asked my playmate to get alcohol. And she ran to the house, but I called her back, realizing it would sting. So I just asked for a dipper of water. She left again, but I called her back. "Please get cotton, or a towel or... call Ate Lina." My playmate was hurrying to and fro, back and forth to me and to my house. She was the one who was panicking for me.

This time I had to be taken for stitching by my mother, who arrived a bit late that night, catching me trying to wash myself up seated on a bathroom stool, with my leg lifted on another stool.  I think that incident rendered my ankle weak for the rest of my life, as 4 or 5 years later, it was the same ankle that I injured the day before my Junior-Senior Prom. Imagine me in heels dancing the cotillion with a swollen foot. That would make another story.

The final (hopefully the last) major scar of mine is on my abdomen.  It's the result of three Cesarian Section (CS) births, sliced, then closed three times. I did not choose to deliver through CS. But the procedure was necessary. The first, because my second baby was in a transverse breech position; the second was an emergency case—the baby was having fetal distress as I attempted to give birth the Lamaze way; while the third was a scheduled CS. The gap between the last birth and this one was too short and my OB-Gynecologist did not want to risk rupture of the previous wound.

This is the battle scar I used to be embarrassed about.  But after my second surgery, when a friend of mine complained about how her CS scar really made her feel so ugly, I radically realized that this battle scar was the most beautiful mark on my body.

The temple scar was about the consequences of disobedience, and the value of a mother's...shall we say, sense of vainglorious concern for her child.

The palm scar was about the reality that stumbling is inevitable, as we learn and grow through life, and a mother's persevering commitment.

The ankle scar was about a friend's readiness to help me, and how I must have the readiness to know how to help myself.

There are many other little scars: the chicken pox scars, the scar on my knee, the invisible scar of my big toe. I say invisible because I thought it would never get better.  Yet, I don't see any trace of it now. You see, when I was perhaps 7 or 8 years old, I tripped over a galvanized sheet on Good Friday at the farm. According to my mom, children should not play on Good Friday because the old folks say wounds that "happen" on that holy day will never be healed.

Oh, and the acne scars!  Ahh...those talk about how impatient I was as a teenager, squeezing my pimples, hurrying their healing. They will always remind me of late nights as a teen, either partying or finishing some schoolwork; and of first and/or crazy love.

The CS scar?

It was all about how I have laid down my life, possibly ending it, for the beginning of another life.  Three times.

It is long, ugly and sometimes still feels tender, specially when the room is cold. But its pain is nothing compared to the scars on my Savior's side, and on his hands, and on his feet. They are results of deep, undeserved wounds.

Those scars are about God's sacrificial love for me—the one who wounds easily. And heals only, by His grace.

REPOST: “Why Go Through the Trouble”

(A Blog Article for MommySteps.com.ph Written 111011)

It was sad.  I just found out my close friend didn’t get to breastfeed her kids.  As she watched me nurse my newborn, she told me how she wished she had.  She is such an inspiring woman, gave up her career to be a fulltime mom.  She had medical practitioners like her in her family, and surrounded by loving people, but nobody cheered her on when she struggled about nursing.  No one assured her that the hard part was going to be over.

I can so understand her.  I know how it feels to be anxious about milk supply.  I’ve seen my eldest struggle just to latch on, and cry almost unceasingly out of frustration.  I went through the day with so little time to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom, being at the beck and call of a tiny infant every 1½ hours!  I smelled of spoiled breastmilk, lungad, pee, sweat and tears all day.  I never thought it was going to be that difficult.  My Ate warned me that the first time the baby sucks, it would be so painful, your toes will curl up and exchange places with each other!  And she was so right.   I prayed so hard it would be over soon.  And like my Lamaze experience, just when I wanted to give up, it was soon over.   I toughened up as baby Mishka and I bonded, and the rest is magical history.

I have since then, for 17 years now, been a breastfeeding fan.  But, no, I never imagined to be one.  I was too young to remember being breastfed as a baby.  All I could recall was the comforting sensation from sucking milk through a yummy rubber nipple on a heavy glass bottle.  I did not get exposed to women breastfeeding in my family, except my mom, who nursed my younger sister for a few weeks as Mama had to go back to work. And somehow it felt awkward.  Funny how such a natural thing, wasn’t normal in my experience.  Maybe it’s because aside from having a career woman-mom, I was urbanized, and was from a generation which regarded formula as most superior.  We did not have ads saying “Breastmilk is best for babies…” then.

The first convincing pep talk I got about the benefits of breastmilk was when I attended a Lamaze class with my older pregnant sister.  But she worked fulltime after giving birth, and after a few weeks, Ate could not keep up.  As my friends were getting married and pregnant, I witnessed them trying it out and in public(!), even if it was out of their character.  Even though during that time, it wasn’t as acceptable as it is now.  And that was impressive.

At my church and workplace, I met women, both employed and stay-at-home housewives, who breastfed.  One even did until her child was age 4.  That was highly unimaginable for me. 

Yet, I gave it a try.  And by God’s grace, I hurdled the first months of engorged heavy feverish breasts; sore, cracked, bleeding nipples; sleeplessness; backaches; pumping rituals; crying over spilled and spoiled stored milk; and not being able to just get up and go whenever I wanted, without tagging baby along.  Every trip out of the house was a production number.  It was tiring, tense-filled, terrible, troublesome.  

But I went through it nevertheless.  I found out how much convenient it was to breastfeed than bottlefeed!  Aside from my Ate who started me off in it, who with my mom would place pillows around me to make nursing as comfy as possible, and my parents-in-law who cheered me on, I could not count on anyone else to be La Leche League for me.  I had books, but even my pedia wasn’t really for it, too.  She didn’t have a pleasant experience nursing her firstborn as the baby was allergic to her milk.

But I was blessed to have a circle of moms who encouraged me, and househelp to manage the household, and take over during toxic moments.  I have a very supportive husband who patiently takes care of our babies, so I could take a break.  One night, as I was crying in the shower, in duet with my eldest crying in my husband’s arms, I heard my hubby shout in pain.  He had playfully tried to comfort our baby by offering his breast, only to be grabbed by our son’s voracious mouth.  If he could nurse, he would!

Why go through the trouble three more times?  Because as the advertisements proclaim and studies prove: breastmilk IS best for baby.  Breastfeeding saves us from the big bills purchasing cans of milk, vitamins, and medicines, and spares us from hospital expenses as baby rarely gets sick. But more importantly, it gives me deep joy, outweighing all the distress.  I marvel at how God has so designed my body to share of its strength.  He created my body to nourish and nurture a life dependent on me, to communicate security and love to my little one, to constantly stay by him to bond with and express my deep commitment to, to ensure a powerful immune system and a healthy emotional and intellectual development for him, to regenerate and rebuild itself through the process, to powerfully fight cancer and other dreadful diseases it is prone to, and yes, to feel loved in return.  The baby makes sure you feel it.  As she feeds, she stares at you, and flashes smiles at you, unequalled by any word of gratitude.  And when he grows up, he stays close.  And grateful.

I used to think breastfeeding was all for baby’s sake until I discovered it is all for me too. 

REPOST: Post-partum Party

(A Blog Article for MommySteps.com.ph Written 101911)

It’s no party.  These next days after giving birth.  I should know.  It has happened to me three times before.

With my firstborn, although the Lamaze success meant being up and about in no time, I wrestled with first-time mommy anxieties, sleepless nights, incessant colicky cries, engorged breasts, and cracked nipples.  Soon as my husband went back to work, the blues crept in.  I found myself wanting to drop everything, including my baby(!) and walk away.

With my second baby, the challenges were different–a discouragingly slow recovery from an emergency-CS, an infected wound, Dequervain’s tenosynovitis (a painful wrist condition), and the frustration that I can’t give the same time to my eldest anymore.  The deep sadness hovered around me days before my husband’s paternity leave ended.

After 10 years, with my third child’s birth, in spite of the VBAC-Lamaze failure, I was doing quite fine.  But on the day my baby turned 3 months, typhoon Ondoy happened.  After two nights of being stuck with 40 evacuees in our second floor, we were rescued by our church’s rubber boats, and had to stay temporarily at my mom’s place for 2 ½ months.  The flood’s damage, the stress of living with tentativeness, anxiety over how my lone yaya could restore our home, the separation from my eldest who had to stay at a friend’s place since it was nearer to school, and my husband going back to work and leaving for a business trip, gave the crazy hormones a hard kick.  My health deteriorated, my sorrow compounded.

Now, with my 4th baby, I may be a seasoned person, but am still subject to the same post-partum lows.  I have to consciously resist expecting quick healing and getting back in shape.  I have to disregard the notion that because this is my fourth child, things should be more manageable.  I have to be makapal and holler for help.  I have to anticipate the baby blues not just by talking about it, but by embracing it. 

I am no longer who I was before.  And like any loss, I need to give myself the luxury of grief.  I am grateful that, though I have given up a lot to accommodate a lot more, I am growing.  And that, is good.

It’s 3am, and in this still dark night, as I carry baby upright to burp, the only thing I could see is his nape, silhouetted by the faint light from our neighbor. The only sound I could hear is my husband’s soft snore, signaling how tired he is and needs more sleep.  Realizing how everyone has gotten back to a normal routine, except me, makes me feel the loneliness over again. 

So I rock my son in my arms, to the rhythm of a familiar melancholic lullaby playing in my head.  I press my cheek against his softness, and it dawns upon me.  As if racing against the sunrise, the appreciation rushes in.  I thank my baby that I am not alone, after all.  I hug him tightly. Then as if on cue, he rests on my shoulder and an unexplainable peace hushes me. 

And I thank Him that I am never alone.  In this party of three.

REPOST: Bedrest is Hard Work

(A Blog Article for MommySteps.com.ph Website Written 042811)

I am not used to this. This was my greatest fear—to be confined in bed, and during pregnancy! 

Two years ago, during my last pregnancy with Miro, my 3^rd child, most days were spent at the gym, carpooling & doing the usual errands.  The wooziness was short and I kept meeting up with friends, just being my regular self with a rounder tummy.

This time, on my 8^th week, I bled.  I am 45, and I forget.  I pushed myself too far.  Thus, my doctor had to implement Martial Law a.k.a. bedrest. A similar episode happened during my 2^nd pregnancy, 12 years ago, and I had to do the same, but only for 2 weeks.  However, I did not have a breastfeeding 1-year-old, and wasn’t homeschooling a tween then.  I was much younger, much different now. 

So what do you do when parenting duties, and preparations to move out to a new home await you?  You sulk, grieve, take advantage of the sleep license, and deal with the guilt.  I was deeply sorry that I couldn’t spend much time with Miro, drive my older kids around, help hubby with income-making projects, and get fat and flabby.

I tried to drown out the sadness by sleeping, reviewing pregnancy materials/sites, reducing my books-to-read pile, watching the news (was up-to-date, even with American Idol), seeing movies I missed, updating Twitter and Facebook, reading with Miro, using the bed as a homeschooling desk, and conversing with God.

Nomnom (our 4^th baby’s nickname) was a surprise, just like Miro. We knew in our hearts he/she was designed by God’s perfect wisdom and timing. In my journal, I wrote: “I appreciate You, O God, because Nomnom means rest, recovery and stamina.  He is a gift­–reminding me to be faithful, pure and steadfast... I realize this blessing is a season of rest.  Of being still before You.”

I didn’t get to rehash on my French, de-clutter my pack rat-infested room, nor journal a lot as planned, but I was able to focus on my unique role–to be a responsible steward of this life inside me.  I had a renewed appreciation for my ulirang husband, kids and househelp.  I texted friends to kamusta, and interceded for them. God’s peace kept me still.

I am on my 20^th week.  Martial Law was lifted 4 weeks ago! If ultrasound cues me to go back to exercise, I will, but slowly.  The 2 months of bedrest trained my body to take it easy.  I have wonderfully discovered that recovery strengthens, and rest is the gift of active revival and healing.

Oh yes, and because of bedrest, I also found out that I could type fast while on a side-lying-down position, na nakadi-kwatro pa! 

Meant To Mend

Today, Caring (not her real name) marks her 2 weeks under my shelter. She has been a battered wife since she married at the age of 14. With 8 children aged 17 to 3, Caring could not leave home, or if she had the courage to, she would come back to her husband once he comes getting her back. Two weeks ago, she ran to my mother's farm barefoot. She says she cannot stand it any longer, and knows for sure that once her spouse comes to get her, she will willingly go home. My mom decided to take her to Manila to stay temporarily with me. She could help me out with the household chores as I have been one helper less.

The story of abuse. The vicious cycle of being a battered wife. Or husband. Gasgas na ba (Overly-discussed)?

Call me weird. (I don't really mind because I am.) But I really like the smell of sewing machine oil, and newly-bought-from-Divisoria tela (textile). I grew up with Mama's electric Singer Sewing Machine whirrs as my nursery songs, and I clearly recall how I would sit by her feet for hours, waiting for scraps of cloth and threads to fall on the floor only for me to put them together somehow. Or, make them talk.

Mama was raised in a Pampango household where the mother wasn't supposed to work but cook, and perhaps play mahjong in the afternoon. In her particular household. women were allowed to drive cars, and be in athletics, but were raised to be homebodies. Mama's father, a well-accomplished engineer and former Governor of Pampanga, put many others through school, and decided that his princess (my mother) should not be working after college, so he highly recommended (I'm being nice, imposed is the more accurate word) that she took a Fine Arts course and grow in her artistic talent. Daddy (my grandfather) even built a nipa hut studio for her. When she married, Daddy put up a dress shop for her, another daughter and a daughter-in-law. It was a 5-minute walk from our place but eventually, she gave it up and worked from home.

Mama was a repair(wo)man. Although raised in a comfortable setting, she took the time to fix what could still be fixed. I would always see her with a needle and thread nagsusulsi (sewing to repair). Our uniforms would get ripped in school, but would look brand new the next day.

One evening, as my sister and I were infested with head lice, she put some nose-bothersome Chinese medication, and instead of buying a new shower cap to cover our heads as we sleep, she thought of recycling something else. She picked our oldest panties and sewed the openings for the legs and made us wear them. Throughout the night. Yes, we felt ridiculous and no, we did not see any dead lice in the morning trapped in them.  But it will always be a great story to tell our kids, and perhaps our grandkids to show how creative and environment-friendly my mom is. She tired to recycle a lot of things.

I remember even with cracked vases, and broken toys, faded jewelry and tattered stuff, she would find a way to make them functional, polished or pretty again. Or usable in another way.

I think this strength of hers has evolved into some form of a mission in her life. She was always optimistic about how a person can still change. Or how a problem can still be solved. Or a wound to be healed.

When she had a garment business, she would oftentimes employ abandoned children, disabled or abused adults. Each visit I make to her office, she would introduce me to a character, and with that person came a soap-opera material story. Even with animals, she is likewise very kind. Her farm is not just a refugee center of needy people, but an orphanage for a crippled deer, a sick puppy, unwanted creatures, birds whose mistress was terminally sick, turtles, cats, fish, guinea pigs, fowls that can no longer fit into their former masters' residences.

Last Mother's Day, I decided to crochet for her a cellphone case ornamenting it with an owl. Her favorite colors are shades of purple, and using my daughter's Blackberry, I estimated the size of Mama's phone and looped, knotted, tangled away. I cannot outgive my mom, and even if I could afford buying her stuff she would not buy for herself, like a new car or a vacation house or a trip abroad, I know that she greatly appreciates gifts which carry with it appreciation for who I've become because of her.

And I know because of her, I have yearned to become a woman who gives healing, and not pain. Who gives hope, and not condemnation.

My mother is an animal-lover but amongst all the wonderful creatures God has made,
the owl reminds me of her, because of its big beautiful eyes.

I wrote Mama a card to go with the gift. In the card, I shared with her why I chose the owl. She loves animals, and I remember having cats, dogs, lovebirds, rabbits, guinea pigs and fish as pets. But breaking convention, I remember how she adopted owls from Palawan, something unimaginable then unless you were an aviary owner. She installed wires around our porch window, converting it into a cage. 

Mother was a woman of wisdom, as an owl is known to be wise. As I was crocheting the phone case, my 13yo asked why I chose the owl, and after telling her my reasons, she added, "And maybe because she doesn't sleep at night, and makes puyat (stays up late at night)?" When I was relating this exchange to my 18yo, he immediately interrupted: "Is it also because she can turn her head 360 degress?" I laughed. Yes, she can, and is able to sense when someone needs help. Here's proof.

Mama worked for an export garment business before putting up her own.
On a location shoot, the fashion photographer caught her in a lovely angle.
Tall, slim and attractive, she was often teased to join in the shoot or the show to be a print or ramp model.

Yeah, this sounds like a post-Mother's Day tribute. I've written other pieces about her, even way back in college. For an English 5 essay, my professor gave me a 1.0, but more unforgettable than the grade is his very nice comment: "You are blessed to have such a mother, and she is fortunate to have you."

Mama is not into reading blogs so I hope to email this to her. And with it, let me say, "Mama, I praise God, for you have always been meant to mend. Thank you for patiently holding together my palm when I was a toddler as it oozed with blood, after breaking a teacup in my hand when I tripped. Thank you for pinching the skin of my wound on my temple together, when I was a preschooler. You painstakingly did this for the rest of the day, even if it consumed your hours of rest and productivity. Thank you for that late evening, when coming home from work, you saw that the cut I had on my ankle after playing soccer, was too deep for your magic fingers to repair. You knew a professional had to do the sewing in the ER. Thank you for knowing the difference between managing what you could, and letting Someone else take control. I think that you are an awesome Fix-It-All. But more than that, I appreciate you for being a compassionate woman beyond compare."