Concepcion

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Concepcion
Sunday, 04 18, 2004

She was her father’s favorite daughter. Born in that marvelous period of our history when teachers were looked up to as the models of a community, she grew up with the expectation from her parents that she would be a maestra. But fate was not so kind. The succession of two brothers and five sisters put a strain on family resources, and she had to stop schooling in second year high school to give her siblings the chance to taste how it is to be in school. So at the tender age of fourteen she found herself out of school - a very reluctant dropout - and a helper in a small family enterprise. Simultaneously, she tended the sari-sari store of her mother and helped in the management of the rice mill that her father had put up in his small farm in Balatong, now the site of Fort Ilocandia.

Life was arduous in that arid Ilokano barrio in San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, but she refused to be vanquished by the doldrums of everyday existence. Instead of bemoaning her premature entry into responsibility, she sang away her cares as she tended her mother’s store and during those times when she would pack raw cane sugar into coconut shell halves to harden into palinang. This cheery disposition and the music in her soul struck a responsive chord in the heart of an itinerant teacher’s son who had strayed to Balatong from nearby Nangalisan, to listen to the amateur singing contest where she had won with her rendition of that heart-tugging classic Ilokano love song, Bannatiran. A typical Ilokano courtship followed, that culminated in a wedding that produced in steady succession eight children whom she would name after the idols and heroes of her time - the eldest after Shirley Temple, and a son after the writer who had won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Battle of the Bulge.

Her frustrations at not having realized her dream of becoming a maestra found redemption in her children who, even before they set foot in school, had mastered the three R’s through her patient, loving instruction. Her children would, many years later, look back and realize that they had been blessed with a truly remarkable mother during their passage from infancy to adolescence. Unlike other parents of her time, who tutored their children through intimidation, coercion and threats, she led her children through the path of learning by methods that were as delightful as they were instructive. For instance, instead of having to ask her children to memorize by rote that “two and two make four,” and “ten fives make a fifty,” she involved them in what present-day educators would now call as hands-on learning - she tasked them to tend to her tiangge and in no time they learned to count and make change in centavos, with the added benefit of being rewarded with an occasional treat of a candy bar among the merchandise in her small store.

When her husband bought her a sewing machine, she promptly discovered that the katsa of the fertilizer, sugar and feed bags that she sold in her tiangge could be tailored into some very nice shirts and shorts for her three young sons. After some considerable experience turning out clothes for her family, she was soon making good money out of the best Sunday dresses that she sewed for neighbors and acquaintances.

In the kitchen, she could turn whatever was available into mouth-watering gustatory delights. For miles around, she was known for the best isaw and the most savory ara-et. Even the flowers of the alokon tree were transformed into a delicious family dish once she set her mind to cooking them. The inabraw - that native dish that sets every urban, “transplanted” Ilokano into salivating - was something that she cooked best of all.

As if dressmaking, maintaining a small barrio store, and being a housewife were not full-time chores enough, she decided that a backyard swine project of two sows at a time would be a nice addition to her wifely duties while her husband sweated it out in a motor shop that he has put up. From their combined income, they saw to it their children received the best education. And in a town that recognizes well its achievers, it is no wonder then that she was once chosen Mother of the Year, having borne and provided guidance and inspiration to eight children who have all grown up to be professionals in their own right.

A mother is like a candle that lights others in consuming herself. For the best part of her active years, this resourceful, hardworking Ilokana mother had not been only a bright, shining presence in her household but also in her community as well. To her credit as a trustworthy citizen, every election time had always required her services as a poll clerk. For a short while, though, in 1981, she was devastated when her husband died, but she soon picked up the pieces of her shattered life and regained the inner strength that she had always found in a life of prayer. A devotee of Our Lady of Fatima, she continued to immerse herself in the activities of the simbaan and in the community.

She would have been thrilled had one of her sons opted for the priesthood. There was this son whom she had plighted for that vocation and had entrusted to a guardian, who would take care of him because he was going to grow up to be a priest. By the time the son graduated from the elementary grades, she was ready with everything - abel weaves of blankets, towels, bathrobes - that he was supposed to use at the seminary. But the son was not destined to heed the call of the Church; instead of the hushed and prayerful confines of the seminary, he preferred the tumultuous and exciting striving in a university setting and is now a damned good lawyer very much involved in trying to set right the affairs of the State.

Concepcion will live on for many more years. Like every tabako-chomping Ilokana, she is made of hardy stuff. Her senses are as sharp as they will ever be, except her eyesight which she lost five years ago. She, at 87, cannot read this awkward paean from a grateful son. Her daughter - my sister Evelyn - will have to read it to her.

Happy birthday, Mama.



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