Two good women (Concepcion & Manang Alma)

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Two good women
Sunday, 10 10, 2004

When God thought of mother, He must have laughed with satisfaction, and framed it quickly – so rich, so deep, so divine, so full of soul, power and beauty, was the conception.

— Henry Ward Beecher

A good woman, Concepcion, died the other Friday at 88. Yesterday, she was laid to rest beside her husband Emerson, who had joined our Creator ahead of her 23 years ago. Present were her 8 children, 29 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren. Also present to bid goodbye was another good woman, Manang Alma. Today’s column is an unabashed tribute to these two women.

Many years ago for a woman like Concepcion, attending to the upbringing of five girls and three boys in the bucolic town of San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte - where time seemed to have stood still until a man named Ferdinand from nearby Batac citified it like the rest of the province - was a mean feat unlike any other. After all, mothering is not unlike being the chief operating officer of a business concern, where the details of molding the product to create an impact in the market must be attended to with tender loving care if profits are to be expected. The products of Concepcion’s union with Emerson, who have all made their marks in their chosen professions, cherish to this day the detailed imprint of that tender loving care - a badge of honor so deep, so full of soul, power and beauty that only a mother like Concepcion could impart.

The achievements of her children notwithstanding, Concepcion never developed the superior, condescending air of a mother whose brood have become full-fledged successes after they have left the familial nest. She remained the simple, hardworking and religious woman she had chosen to become when her father decided that she had to stop schooling at the age of 14 to give way to a brother who somehow must also taste what it is to be in school.

With her arms laden with the clothes she sewed and the wooden clogs her husband carved, Concepcion often hiked the tortuous length of the highway that led from her house in the poblacion to the barrio of Nagrebcan, east of San Nicolas, to barter these merchandise with the fresh catch from nearby Padsan River, the exquisite abel fashioned from native hand looms, or the claystone ware Nagrebcan is famous for. And there she met Manang Alma, with whom she would forge a partnership in the name of motherhood.

Concepcion recruited Manang Alma, who was then barely fifteen, to be the baby sitter of two kids still about to learn their kartilla. Soon Manang Alma would find herself right smack in the middle of the brawls of these two kids, not to mention the misery and aggravations that every child unthinkingly imposes on those who serve him like he were a king. She would survive as well the wound inflicted on her head by a wayward hammer thrown by a murderous ward who did not know good from bad. Manang Alma was their linemmengan (hide-and-seek) playmate, and their tireless commentator on the travails of the Ilocano hero, Lam-Ang, whose saga was serialized over DZRL, then the only radio station there was. She was also the uncomplaining assistant to Concepcion in their weekly sojourns by the river, to wash the huge, heavy blankets and the grime- and grease-encrusted talyer clothes of Emerson.

Many years later, Manang Alma would leave the house of Concepcion to get married, but marriage did not stop her from finding time for Concepcion. She would be there every Saturday, to do everything like she used to do. The two kids she had mothered were already grown up; she then gave her attention to the grandchildren of Concepcion who were now coming into this world in quick succession.

Despite the rigors of bringing up children of her own – and, later, running a furniture business that she was able to set up out of her modest salary - Manang Alma continued to serve Concepcion. The ties between the two were so intertwined that Manang Alma became a fixture in the annual gatherings of Concepcion’s family. Manang Alma was family, and she was always around to share with the household the heavy grief of a death here, or the boundless joy of a birth there. The fortunes and sorrows of Concepcion - a momentous event such as a favorite son’s becoming a lawyer, or a loss in the family - were equally the joys and tribulations of Manang Alma.

In her old age Concepcion needed somebody to talk to, to recall old times with, to keep her alert. Much as they wanted to, her children would not do; they had gone to the big city, or abroad, making it impossible for them to be with their mother. So who should be there to meet that need? Manang Alma, needless to say. When Concepcion lost her eyesight at 83, Manang Alma, who herself had added up the years, continued to read to Concepcion her favorite nobela in Bannawag, or update her on what her favorite son was writing in The Daily Tribune. After having mothered two generations of Concepcion’s family, here was Manang Alma again, in her old age, still being true to form: a person giving of herself to somebody she had loved and unselfishly served.

Concepcion has left for the Great Beyond. She had redeemed herself so well as a mother that what she did so well on earth, what she had made out of her children, will continue to be an inspiration for the generations after her. Her progeny, too, will forever remember that Concepcion made Manang Alma into what she had become: a loyal, caring member of the family.

There is something that our lawmakers will never be able to incorporate in the laws that they enact, and that is loyalty. They may legislate the salary that we have to give to our maids, like what Congress did with Republic Act 7655 in 1993, but they will never be able to exact the kind of loyalty that every one craves for from those who serve them well. There is nothing like love that comes from the heart, which is countless times more precious than the pittance that we give to our maids.

When my sister Evelyn cried her heart out at 4:53 in the afternoon of Oct. 1, the exact time that Concepcion expired, Manang Alma was there to give her comfort like a mother would to a child. Yesterday, at the funeral of my beloved mother Concepcion Barañgan Raval, Manang Alma - my yaya - put her arms around me, and like the child that I was fifty years ago, I felt safe and warm in that embrace.

Suddenly, the loss of a mother was less painful and more bearable.


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