angkinabuhi

It’s Sunday and we’re off to the south with my best friends. I’ve been planning to spend summer with them way back in high school and after eight years, we’ve finally packed up our things and ready to have some fun in one of the best tourist destinations in Cebu, the beautiful Moalboal.

My aunt has a small property there. I visit her every summer and spend weeks or months in her small haven. She left her hometown in Leyte when she eloped with an Italian guy at the age of eighteen. They had no children after twenty two years of marriage, except me. She calls me her adopted daughter when in fact she’s from my father’s farthest kin.

I was planning to surprise her on a very special day. I asked my best friends to help me out since I had no extra allowance left. As early as six, we headed to the terminal with a handful of cookies and cream polvoron, a slice of cassava cake and one lovely mocha cake from Goldilocks. Those are my aunt’s favorites. Would you believe that she would travel two hours to get to the city just to eat those yummy delicious things? I have thought of requesting Goldilocks to open a branch in Moalboal so that she doesn’t have to experience the painstaking and nausea-inflicting ride on a bus. When she gets old, it would be difficult for her to do that. How excruciating it is for an old woman to go through such horrible experience. But my Aunt would only laugh at me every time I tell her this.

She first got married to a Filipino man at seventeen and gave birth to an adorable baby. But their marriage ended up drastically and his man took her daughter away. I know how much she has resented him. I know how much remorse and hate she had for him and how much my Aunt regretted the day she wasn’t able to fight for her daughter. All the emptiness she had for missing her daughter, she tried to fill it up by taking care of me. In a way, she was able to perform her role as a mother despite the fact that I am not her own. She has been living a solitary and complicated life for a couple of years now. Her failure in both marriages took a part of herself and seeing her like that tears me apart. As much as I want to but I cannot momentarily take away the hurt that was brought from her past. I suppose, visiting my Aunt in her abode eases up the emptiness that she feels. And with a handful of Goldilocks treats, that would lighten a weary heart on a cold lonely summer.

I dashed to the gate and called her up. As a slow poke, my Aunt wasn’t expecting me to arrive that early. We all greeted and shouted happy mother’s day along with a bagful of her favorites. With a yawn and a lovely grin she gave me a big warm embrace and never said a word. I felt so delighted and overjoyed by how she reacted. I felt as though, it was the first time I embraced her. As if, I was that little girl who lost my way home and found comfort in her arms. We went straight to the kitchen and opened the boxes filled with yummy toothsome treats.

I was overwhelmed by how my best friends helped me prepare for that day. I have never done anything like this since the time she considered me her own. In fact, that was the only way I could show to her how grateful I am to have her with me. From the time on that my mom entrusted me to her, she took good care of me. People would seldom mistaken me as her daughter because I’d go everywhere she goes and people would say, we both have a little resemblance.

You’re the 1 Goldilocks, because you brought happiness to my Aunt with just one bite of cassava cake. Looking at her taking every bite with glee just brings joy to my heart. I was so happy that finally, I was able to surprise her. She was like a selfish little child eating it all up as I cleaned off her cassava-smeared lips. It’s so amazing how small things can mean a lot to someone. That one good deed was appreciated with my Aunt’s smile of content. After all, one bite took all her pain away even just for a day.

It was still three years ago but it was one memory that my Aunt is thankful of. It reminded her that despite living a lonely life, there are a few people who can make one little act of kindness that made her feel she is being loved and remembered on mother’s day. In spite of everything she is still the best mom this world has, not just to me but to her daughter as well. And Goldilocks made it all happen.