Why I Never Celebrated Mother’s Day with Mom
By Elizabeth Ann Quirino
One day, during a chat with my writing teacher I told her a story of how I spent my summers as a child in my hometown, Tarlac, a province in the Philippines. I remember from those days how I helped my mom make mango jam. There was no end to the mangoes that had to be peeled, mashed, squashed into a thick pulp. It was so tedious and took time away from playing. I was a child then. It’s a wonder I did not develop a dislike to mangoes, but instead grew up loving them like no other fruit. Perhaps it was my mom’s guidance and showing me how to enjoy making the jam that taught me to appreciate this marvelous tropical fruit. My teacher urged me to write an essay on the process. I took her advice and scribbled a few lines. Then with much regret I stopped writing.
“There’s something I just realized now. I can’t write the essay. I forgot to do something.”
“I forgot to ask Mom for the recipe,” I said sadly.
“Then write about your regret. Write about the experience, how you felt and what you saw,” my writing teacher suggested. I followed her advice.
I finished the essay, 800 words and shoved it in a drawer. The Mango Jam essay stayed in the drawer for a long time. I never submitted it to major media publications. I was too shy. I felt unsure. Who would want to read about an outdated method of cooking mango jam in a third world country, which had NO recipe to begin with, I thought to myself?
Fast forward to early spring 2012. The Doreen G. Fernandez Food Writing Awards announced a call for submissions. I gasped. Doreen was my hero. She was the doyenne of Philippine food writing. As a child, I used to help my mom clip her newspaper columns “Pot Au Feu” from the ‘Manila Chronicle’ and dutifully pasted them on mom’s recipe scrapbook. I was in elementary then. I could barely whisk a soufflé, but reading recipes and food essays fascinated me. It also brought me closer to mom. We used to pore over Doreen’s writings together, while Mom would give me her own advice on food, family and love. On hindsight, it must have been Mom’s way to prepare me for life’s lessons later on when she could no longer be with us.
When Mom passed away a year before I got married, I carried on her tradition of clipping recipes from magazines, watching cooking shows on TV, collecting cookbooks. When I got married, I was on my own in the kitchen, as a new bride trying to remember all that Mom taught me.
But one thing was elusive all these years. It was the Mango Jam recipe. No matter how many mangoes I had, how sweet they were, how ripe or how plump the fruit, I could never replicate the mango jam the same way mom used to do it. Worse, I felt awful in all those years I never asked her for the recipe.
One day, after a gazillion attempts, hours of stirring, the thick, rich, golden jam finally tasted just like Mom’s. I was in my American kitchen now. I was no longer in Tarlac, the town I grew up in. This time, I did it right. Perhaps it took a million trial and errors. Or maybe I used the right copper bottom pot. Or was it the wooden spoon I used? The right temperature? You know what I think? Mom was right there, in spirit, next to me, showing me how to do it the right way, from memory. I knew she was there. It was the painful longing for her that jabbed at my heart that moment. It happens when thoughts of Mom overcome me and tears engulf me so badly, my eyes blur, glasses get foggy and I have to stop for a moment to catch my breath. Forgive me, I digressed.
But this is what Mother’s Day is all about to me. We never really celebrated Mother’s Day in the Philippines because it is an American holiday and not a Filipino tradition. I never celebrated Mother’s Day with my own mom. It was only a celebration that came around in later years in the Philippines (after she died), perhaps brought on by the commercialization of the event by greeting card companies and retail stores (with all due respect to these industries). But yes, Mother’s Day is indeed a ‘western concept’ and as a Filipina, it was an event we only read about or saw in the movies.
I have no regrets, though. Mother’s Day was celebrated all the time when I was growing up. We didn’t need Mother’s Day, we had summers of making mango jam. Nothing else made me closer to my mother than those memorable days. Nothing ever will.
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*Update: My essay “A Hundred Mangoes in A Bottle” was awarded a Doreen G. Fernandez Food Writing Award in 2012 and published in the book “Savor the Word”, a collection of award-winning essays of the writing contest. In 2013, the same essay won a Plaridel Writing Award, for Journalism Excellence, First Prize — Best Food Story, an award given out by the Philippine- American Press Club in San Francisco, California.
Read my award-winning essay in the archives of PositivelyFilipino.com online magazine. You can purchase the book “Savor the Word”, a collection of award-winning essays, where most books are sold in the Philippines. Or search past articles on my recipe blog AsianInAmericaMag.com.