uncertainties and such fears

My Mom’s Birthday

and what I have missed

It was my Mom’s birthday two days ago and I felt a bit melancholic. At family events like this, I yearn to go home and celebrate with them, just like the old times.

My family’s tradition was to set up a small party at home. We cook pasta, buy cake and ice cream, and satiate our cravings for holiday cuisine. Sometimes, we dine out together. When I was kid, I used to save up weeks before so I could buy her a gift. But the most important part of the feast is the idea that we celebrate it together.

The last time we celebrated our Mom’s birthday together was in 2004. It was also my father’s despidada. My dad left for the US in early October that year. In less than a year after, my mom, my brother, and my sister followed, consecutively.

Now, I can only be with them through hours-long phone calls. My Mom said there had been slight changes in the birthday menu. She cooked pancit (as they miss Philippine cuisine), bought pizza and “buffalo wings” (I don’t even know if that was a proper noun). I got lost with that one because I took it literally during our conversation. But my mom explained that those were chicken wings that had its origin in New Jersey before it became popular.

My brother told me that my Dad bought her two bouquets of flowers and surprised her with ice cream later that day. I though it was really sweet that my dad was able to give my mom a gift, a privilege he didn’t have when he spent almost a decade working as an engineer in Saudi when we were still young.

My sister told me, with her slightly English-turning-twang in her Tagalog, that my Mom cried when my dad wasn’t able to buy a cake for her. Like me, my mom must have remembered what our traditional parties looked like. And maybe she recalled that I was on it.