Children are diamonds in the rough
May 9, 2004 | 12:00am
Children are like rough diamonds waiting for a mother’s hand to cut and polish their facets. Through constant love and dedication of a mother, children emerge as dazzling diamonds for the whole world to see.
This thought unrelentingly played in my mind as I talked to my high school friend Martha Orosa-Uy during one of our class meetings for the velada of Assumption Convent San Lorenzo’s High School Batch ’79. Martha gleefully told me the beautiful story that she shared with her late mother, Consuelo Roco Pimentel Orosa. The teachings she learned from her Mom are the same lessons she passes on to her daughter Sarah. Their story is indeed a continuing saga of love, passion and affection.
"My Mom," Martha said while stroking the ring on her finger that her mother gave her, "instilled wonderful values in me. She taught me to be the best that I could be; to believe in myself; and to believe that someday, somehow, I would become a better mother than she was."
Since it was her mom’s dream to make Martha better than her when she grew up, she imparted all that she was to Martha. She exposed her to all that she knew and taught her the basics of life as well as the rudiments that came with it.
"My mom, fondly called Ciel, was the niña bonita of her family. She was a beautiful person both inside and out. She lived by the principle of putting others ahead of herself," Martha said, adding that her mom held her family together as they all rested on her strength. The entire clan would gather every Sunday in her house, where she loved hosting family dinners. "Through all those precious years, I was constantly by her side watching and learning all her skills. Though my mom was somehow involved in the family business, her priority was her home and her passion was her family. She was so good at it. She always did things lovingly and with such great style."
Martha and her mom were the very best of friends. Growing up, Martha would lie on her mother’s thigh and they would talk for hours about everything under the sun. She was her constant companion, confidant and critic. They had the same size in clothes and had the same taste for chunky jewelry. They laughed a lot together. Whenever they had a new joke or story to share she would always push the very young Martha to narrate it to others thereby honing her communication skills.
Martha’s Mom was such a prayerful person. When a crying Martha, who had just broken up with a high school boyfriend, came up to her and confessed: "Mom, I’m so lost and I don’t like the person I have turned out to be." Her mom took her gently in her arms and said: "It is done, Guapa. Do not worry I have already talked to God about you and you will be all right." Because she was such a prayerful person, how could God not listen to her? Martha was so lucky that her mother started praying early for her and the man that she would marry. "It is an answered prayer for I am now happily married to a wonderful gentleman named Nori Uy."
Martha’s mom succumbed to cancer at age 47, dying in Martha’s arms. As Martha kissed her goodbye, she felt that last breath as it landed on her forehead. Many came to her funeral with only the nicest things to say about how she touched their lives. The wife of an employee approached Martha to say how unforgettably kind her mother was. The lady said when she was sick in the hospital, bedridden with pain, Martha’s mom came to pray over her and massaged both her feet for an hour.
"How loving and humble she was," Martha said. "I wish my daughter Sarah and I could be like her!"
Today, Martha lives by this mission statement: "To inspire those whose lives I touch and to become all that God intended me to be."
True to her word, Mommy Martha, as she is fondly called by those who love her, is always available to everyone who needs her help and expertise. This lady is blessed with such a wealth of God-given talents that she unselfishly shares with a passion. She is an all-around artist-painter, muralist, designer, gourmet cook, performer. Famous for home styling she is now much sought after by happy clients as an interior designer doing various homes, exclusive condominiums and model units. Her lovely own home which she herself designed was featured in both the Lifestyle Channel and Lifestyle Asia Magazine. She creates theme parties wherein the host need just dictate his favored country then lie back and relax as Martha orchestrates everything from menu to physical arrangements making him feel like a guest in his own home. She conducts home management seminars, a four-day program she personally developed to teach helpers everything they need to know from basic cooking to proper cleaning; from buffet setting to hotel style bedmaking. She even includes value formation. Needless to say she is a great homemaker. Her dinners are a treat for the senses, for not only is her cuisine a gastronomic feast, her table settings are pure artistry, too. She also produces her own collection of unique table and fashion accessories.
As a teenager Martha had already touched our lives and left her mark in each one of us. During our high school days at the Assumption, she would gather her classmates at the guidance counselor’s room. There we would huddle together on the floor to listen spellbound as Martha would teach and animatedly talk about a new thing she learned over the weekend that she was dying to share. Topics would vary each session. From beauty tips, makeup tricks, latest dance steps, how to act and how not to act with boys, party planning, handling relationships and a wealth of others. She would even scold us for not fixing ourselves and decide on our dating outfits.
Martha laughingly explained, "Looking back on all that now reminds me of what I wrote in our high school yearbook. What is in me will grow smaller if I do not tell you its secret. Hence I felt I had to share all those things. I guess I, too, was echoing my mom to a certain extent. Since I got all that wealth of information from her how could I keep it to myself?"
Martha lives what she preaches. As a mother she is relentless in guiding her kids in the way they should go. She delegated duties to them at an early age. "My father-in-law, the illustrious James Uy, would play this game with his grandkids called ‘office-office’ where they would be asked to prepare and sign checks. Then I taught Sarah to write real checks." Now at age 11, when Martha goes abroad, Sarah pays the bills. "I put her in charge of disbursements. I told her which bills she would receive and which to pay. It wasn’t easy at first. It took a lot of practice. The first few times she did badly in tabulating and I had to work at it backwards so she would learn from her mistakes. She cried many times but I would lovingly say, ‘Guapa, do not be afraid. You will thank me one day for teaching you this.’ In the end she gained confidence and she learned to do things well."
"Just like what my mom did to me, I constantly expose Sarah to all that I do and it gives me a high whenever she shows a keen interest. The day Sarah said: ‘Mama, I want to do what you are doing.’ I was so thrilled. I took her with me to beading classes and now she has developed her very own art. We enjoy doing various projects together and she helps me a whole lot with mine."
When Martha had to do a power point presentation in just two days, it was Sarah who patiently spent sleepless nights teaching her mom to put her ideas together on the computer resulting in a fantastic program for the upcoming velada of Batch ’79.
"Just like my late mom, both Sarah and I have the same good old fashioned values and we both share in the joy of serving our families. Sarah has my mom’s gentleness and my passion combined. Plus she is so kind, humble, patient and helpful. She will definitely be better than me. I can see it already and I am so excited about it," Martha said.
From time to time, while I was talking to Martha, she gazed at her favorite ring as it caught the light. "I hardly remove this ring for it constantly reminds me of my mom and all the great lessons in mothering that she taught me."
Truly the responsibility of raising a child lies heavily in a mother’s hand. Because, as a mother, not only must you raise your children in the right way but you must also constantly improve yourself in order to be a good role model.
Happy Mother’s Day to all.
This thought unrelentingly played in my mind as I talked to my high school friend Martha Orosa-Uy during one of our class meetings for the velada of Assumption Convent San Lorenzo’s High School Batch ’79. Martha gleefully told me the beautiful story that she shared with her late mother, Consuelo Roco Pimentel Orosa. The teachings she learned from her Mom are the same lessons she passes on to her daughter Sarah. Their story is indeed a continuing saga of love, passion and affection.
"My Mom," Martha said while stroking the ring on her finger that her mother gave her, "instilled wonderful values in me. She taught me to be the best that I could be; to believe in myself; and to believe that someday, somehow, I would become a better mother than she was."
Since it was her mom’s dream to make Martha better than her when she grew up, she imparted all that she was to Martha. She exposed her to all that she knew and taught her the basics of life as well as the rudiments that came with it.
"My mom, fondly called Ciel, was the niña bonita of her family. She was a beautiful person both inside and out. She lived by the principle of putting others ahead of herself," Martha said, adding that her mom held her family together as they all rested on her strength. The entire clan would gather every Sunday in her house, where she loved hosting family dinners. "Through all those precious years, I was constantly by her side watching and learning all her skills. Though my mom was somehow involved in the family business, her priority was her home and her passion was her family. She was so good at it. She always did things lovingly and with such great style."
Martha and her mom were the very best of friends. Growing up, Martha would lie on her mother’s thigh and they would talk for hours about everything under the sun. She was her constant companion, confidant and critic. They had the same size in clothes and had the same taste for chunky jewelry. They laughed a lot together. Whenever they had a new joke or story to share she would always push the very young Martha to narrate it to others thereby honing her communication skills.
Martha’s Mom was such a prayerful person. When a crying Martha, who had just broken up with a high school boyfriend, came up to her and confessed: "Mom, I’m so lost and I don’t like the person I have turned out to be." Her mom took her gently in her arms and said: "It is done, Guapa. Do not worry I have already talked to God about you and you will be all right." Because she was such a prayerful person, how could God not listen to her? Martha was so lucky that her mother started praying early for her and the man that she would marry. "It is an answered prayer for I am now happily married to a wonderful gentleman named Nori Uy."
Martha’s mom succumbed to cancer at age 47, dying in Martha’s arms. As Martha kissed her goodbye, she felt that last breath as it landed on her forehead. Many came to her funeral with only the nicest things to say about how she touched their lives. The wife of an employee approached Martha to say how unforgettably kind her mother was. The lady said when she was sick in the hospital, bedridden with pain, Martha’s mom came to pray over her and massaged both her feet for an hour.
"How loving and humble she was," Martha said. "I wish my daughter Sarah and I could be like her!"
Today, Martha lives by this mission statement: "To inspire those whose lives I touch and to become all that God intended me to be."
True to her word, Mommy Martha, as she is fondly called by those who love her, is always available to everyone who needs her help and expertise. This lady is blessed with such a wealth of God-given talents that she unselfishly shares with a passion. She is an all-around artist-painter, muralist, designer, gourmet cook, performer. Famous for home styling she is now much sought after by happy clients as an interior designer doing various homes, exclusive condominiums and model units. Her lovely own home which she herself designed was featured in both the Lifestyle Channel and Lifestyle Asia Magazine. She creates theme parties wherein the host need just dictate his favored country then lie back and relax as Martha orchestrates everything from menu to physical arrangements making him feel like a guest in his own home. She conducts home management seminars, a four-day program she personally developed to teach helpers everything they need to know from basic cooking to proper cleaning; from buffet setting to hotel style bedmaking. She even includes value formation. Needless to say she is a great homemaker. Her dinners are a treat for the senses, for not only is her cuisine a gastronomic feast, her table settings are pure artistry, too. She also produces her own collection of unique table and fashion accessories.
As a teenager Martha had already touched our lives and left her mark in each one of us. During our high school days at the Assumption, she would gather her classmates at the guidance counselor’s room. There we would huddle together on the floor to listen spellbound as Martha would teach and animatedly talk about a new thing she learned over the weekend that she was dying to share. Topics would vary each session. From beauty tips, makeup tricks, latest dance steps, how to act and how not to act with boys, party planning, handling relationships and a wealth of others. She would even scold us for not fixing ourselves and decide on our dating outfits.
Martha laughingly explained, "Looking back on all that now reminds me of what I wrote in our high school yearbook. What is in me will grow smaller if I do not tell you its secret. Hence I felt I had to share all those things. I guess I, too, was echoing my mom to a certain extent. Since I got all that wealth of information from her how could I keep it to myself?"
Martha lives what she preaches. As a mother she is relentless in guiding her kids in the way they should go. She delegated duties to them at an early age. "My father-in-law, the illustrious James Uy, would play this game with his grandkids called ‘office-office’ where they would be asked to prepare and sign checks. Then I taught Sarah to write real checks." Now at age 11, when Martha goes abroad, Sarah pays the bills. "I put her in charge of disbursements. I told her which bills she would receive and which to pay. It wasn’t easy at first. It took a lot of practice. The first few times she did badly in tabulating and I had to work at it backwards so she would learn from her mistakes. She cried many times but I would lovingly say, ‘Guapa, do not be afraid. You will thank me one day for teaching you this.’ In the end she gained confidence and she learned to do things well."
"Just like what my mom did to me, I constantly expose Sarah to all that I do and it gives me a high whenever she shows a keen interest. The day Sarah said: ‘Mama, I want to do what you are doing.’ I was so thrilled. I took her with me to beading classes and now she has developed her very own art. We enjoy doing various projects together and she helps me a whole lot with mine."
When Martha had to do a power point presentation in just two days, it was Sarah who patiently spent sleepless nights teaching her mom to put her ideas together on the computer resulting in a fantastic program for the upcoming velada of Batch ’79.
"Just like my late mom, both Sarah and I have the same good old fashioned values and we both share in the joy of serving our families. Sarah has my mom’s gentleness and my passion combined. Plus she is so kind, humble, patient and helpful. She will definitely be better than me. I can see it already and I am so excited about it," Martha said.
From time to time, while I was talking to Martha, she gazed at her favorite ring as it caught the light. "I hardly remove this ring for it constantly reminds me of my mom and all the great lessons in mothering that she taught me."
Truly the responsibility of raising a child lies heavily in a mother’s hand. Because, as a mother, not only must you raise your children in the right way but you must also constantly improve yourself in order to be a good role model.
Happy Mother’s Day to all.
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