AI generated photo based on actual photo of my mom and my 19 year old self.
A warm Sunday afternoon in 1972. Mom and I were taking a siesta by the porch. She took my hand and put it on the lump in her left breast. I felt the soft mass. I had no inkling it was cancer. Cancer did not happen to us. It was something you heard about from other families.
She was sick for the next three years.
Mom would have turned 95 yesterday. She died young, at 45, from breast cancer. I’d rather remember the good days than dwell on how strict she was.
She graduated with an Education degree, major in English, minor in Music, from UP Diliman. During martial law, she insisted we study there too, much to the horror of my titos and titas in Manila. Besides English, she taught Speech classes, which is probably why English became our first language.
My mother-in-law died today. It is with great sadness that I write this.
We knew it was coming. She had been ill these past two years, and we had time to ready ourselves. Or so I thought. Today it came anyway, and it was still a shock.
It has been almost 26 years. Twenty-six years.
You would think the sheer weight of time passing would make the loss easier to explain. It doesn’t. Those words still hit a place in me that regular language cannot reach.
When you lose a child, you change. It is not just sadness. It feels like a physical piece of you was torn away. You are left with a heavy quiet where laughter used to be. You wake up expecting to hear little footsteps, but there is nothing. A whole future just vanished. All that love is left with nowhere to go.
Twenty years ago, I sat down in front of a computer and typed my way out of a grief pit.
I didn’t call it blogging yet. I called it surviving. On February 24, 2006, I launched aboutmyrecovery.com, and the first thing I ever wrote was this: “I chose joy over sadness. It is said that grief is inevitable, but misery is optional.”
Eight years ago, we planted coffee. I still remember how hopeful it felt, putting young trees into the ground and trying to imagine a future we couldn’t see yet. Today, I’m proud we did it. But I also carry one honest regret: I wish we had started earlier, when I was younger, when my energy felt endless and time felt like something you could waste.
January always tries to sell me the same idea.
Fresh calendar. Fresh energy. A “new me” speech.
But today, the house is just… quiet.
I made coffee. I sat at the table. I turned my phone face down. I picked up a pen that still writes smoothly. Small blessings.
And I asked myself a question I trust more than motivation.
A year looks tidy on paper. January to December. One clean line. My 2025 did not move like that. It came in scenes, small ones. A notification. A quote that sat heavy in my chest. A long walk that made everything quiet enough for me to hear myself again. A graduation photo that looked familiar and still felt strange. If I had to name the thread that ran through my posts from January to December 25, it would be this: I kept circling the same question. How do you keep living honestly when you’re carrying loss, memory, and time?
In the Philippines, there’s a loud script for people of a certain age.
It expects us to shrink. To be grateful for being allowed to speak. To accept the role of frail, dependent, and quiet.
My daughter recently wrote a piece on ageism. She pointed to research that labels Southeast Asia as highly ageist, then connected it to something many of us grew up with: the way we’re trained to see older people as people who “can’t.” Can’t work. Can’t walk. Can’t keep up.
And our media reinforces it, either through the “cranky lola” stereotype or the senior as a tragedy waiting to happen.
But that script doesn’t fit everyone. It definitely doesn’t fit me.
Outside, everything signals celebration. Lights blink. Carols repeat. Shop windows insist on cheer.
Inside some homes, it’s heavier than that.
For some of us, this season doesn’t feel wonderful. It feels tiring. Or lonely. Or unexpectedly sharp. And when you’re not okay at a time when happiness seems mandatory, that mismatch can be its own quiet burden.