The mother and her son

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

The mother and her son
Sunday, 05 14, 2006

Anyone who has viewed Michelangelo’s Pieta at the St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome will keep the experience alive in his heart. Here, captured in marble, is a depiction of the abysmal sorrow of a mother, a grief so deep that it mocks the brutality of those who had caused the death of her son. Enshrined in marble is the personification of all mothers — the noble individual who envelops each one of us with her fierce love, who protects us from harm, from the time we begin existence in her womb up to the moment we are laid up in the womb of the tomb.

The pathos that the Pieta etched in my heart is still very much a part of my consciousness. It keeps alive the memory of a dear departed mother who stoically braved the travails of raising her children amid harsh surroundings in Ilocos Norte. The Pieta has restored in even more vivid detail the first image — that of my mother — which stamped itself on the fresh blank page of my mind when I was young. These days, every time the vicissitudes of fortune conspire to drive me to near despair, all I have to do is relive the Pieta experience, and all at once my mother is there by my side. I am once more a child, enveloped in a comforting cloud of security by the memory of her caress; enclosed by a warm glow of affection by the memory of her kiss; and assured that there is love in this oftentimes harsh and unforgiving world by the memory of her sympathy and tenderness.

I have no doubt Concepcion, my mother, has gone to that kingdom that is not of this world. But the memory of her lives with her children. Her wise counsel shaped the personal values and attitudes that all her children carry for the rest of their lives. Thank God for Concepcion, and all mothers like her! She who successfully conceived, raised and sustained her children deserves the highest honor and respect that man can give — and the choicest reward in the kingdom of God.

How contemptible, then, that most of us have transformed Mother’s Day as another crass exercise in commercialism and a vacuous display of suffocating affection toward this person who holds the noblest calling in the world. It is as if we have reserved only a day in one whole year to take the poor woman out and give her a treat at a fine restaurant. Or shower her with a bouquet of roses and a box of chocolates, accompanied with a card that tells her that she, and she alone, is the greatest mother in the world.

Yesterday, it was the approaching Mother’s Day that sent my thoughts inexplicably racing back to that day 20 years ago when I stood in awe for the first time before the Pieta. For a while, something in my mental faculties tipped over and I became agitated because I was not immediately able to pin down what triggered the memory. I then realized that my mind was comparing that statue of the Virgin Mary cradling her son Jesus to a recent image we saw on television: that of President Joseph Estrada holding on to his 101-year-old mother, Doña Mary. The latter tableau, my mind was telling me, is the Pieta in reverse! — with the offspring cradling his mother.

The Virgin Mary in the Pieta is not all sorrow as she cradles her dead son. A closer look at her face shows a left cheek that has becomes prominent from a pursed lip. To those who read faces, this sends the message of defiance. Yes, the Virgin Mary is at once a mother laden with sorrow and equally a mother defiant against those who had made her son suffer.

Doña Mary, on the other hand, personifies the mothers of our time who have to suffer the sight of having their sons battered in the streets, haled to jail by the government. Here she has a son, who had led the country as its President, brought to humiliation. How hard it must have been for Doña Mary to realize that her son is now the victim of a government that does not know right from wrong, which has lost its heart, and can no longer relate to the people it is supposed to govern.

But Doña Mary is the defiant mother, whose strong will to live might yet witness the day that justice is done to her son. Hers, in Wordsworth’s phrase, is “the face that looks through death” amid “the soothing thoughts that spring out of human suffering” of her unjustly condemned son. And as the nation saw that riveting image of her — smiling in response to her son’s promise to vindicate the family honor — we are assured that Doña Mary continues to personify the strength of character of mothers everywhere who bring solace to their sons and protect them from harm.

All the suffering mothers in these trying times — those who worry about their children who could be hosed down or truncheoned or haled to jail for no reason at all while exercising their rights or fighting for those who have become victims of the government — are not unlike Doña Mary. They are all Doña Mary, all of them who now suffer yet are equally defiant (for their sons) against the authorities.

Doña Mary, has reached this far in her biological life, fulfilled and expectant of deliverance. After all, how many mothers have had the fortune of having a son for a President? Doña Mary belongs to that select few, and she is savoring it. She can stand proud above everyone else. Throughout the ordeal of her son, she has become the single, most important reason for Erap to fight on for justice. Doña Mary is one mother that Erap is fortunate to have as symbol of his struggle.

Happy Mother’s Day! May all the children out there emulate what Erap has done to praise his mother. And may all mothers of the land, who have sons fighting this government, for justice, find in Doña Mary the mother that stands strong and defiant!

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