SONIA2

She can be irritating, sometimes amazing. She is sneaky at times with the ways of the world. She refuses nothing to anyone who would knock at her door, not sparing even her husband’s newest pair of jeans, or one or a couple of a son’s shirts and shoes. She criticizes loudly on the lousy get up of others and is unapologetic about it while she herself walks around in her cargo pants and a non-pair of slippers, the left one a rubber flip-flop, the right, a fluffy, plush sunflower. She goes about her chores with the nonchalance of a soldier in some communist army, expecting no consolation but her afternoon ‘til midnight soap opera cum news break cum MTV marathons. She hates it when corrected of her hilariously unique set of vocabulary. She loves it when she’s left alone with her dogs, and cats, and love birds and ducks.

She often goes overboard when she spoils someone. A sorely-missed fixture when unusually absent from a gathering. She can be meek as a lamb, but terrifying as a mad hippo when pissed. A trip to the mall for a cheap cone of soft ice cream is all that it takes to make her happy and forget her cares for the day.

She abhors wearing make-up, except for a dab of lip-gloss on some extremely important occasions she has to attend, which during her lifetime including my Diaconal ordination, would add up to less than ten.

She is mother of perpetual help to all distressed creatures, pets and humans alike, an impoverished philanthropist, a lover of simple things. She just is not a good communicator when it comes to unloading her own burdens and aches. She’d try desperately to clown around and laugh out loudly even when her voice would already croak at times, and tears cannot anymore remain tucked at the corners of her round, dark eyes. She would sit quietly at some corner and that would be her sanctuary on stormy, heady days.

All these and many other else, are what she is to family and strangers,to friends and foes, to neighbors both loved and loathed,to persons cherished and deliberately forgotten …She is God's gift of mirth for everyone...and I thank Him for my mom,Sonia!