THIS WEEK’S WINNER
Raselle M. Denilla graduated from UST with an AB journalism degree and is currently working in a bank. “My interests are reading, traveling and photography. Currently, I have a fascination with 19th-century England. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with the pen for a long time now.”
We grew up studying what happened during World War II. We were provided the facts, the causes, and the aftermath. We knew that the charm and beauty of Manila was destroyed and crumbled into millions of pieces after the war. But how much do we know really?
I grew up listening to my lola’s stories about the war. My lola was lucky to have not experienced so much hardship since she was born into a privileged family. What she was always telling us was how she narrowly escaped being one of the comfort women. I thought I knew everything there is to know. I was wrong.
The book, The Last Time I Saw Mother, is about a middle-aged daughter, Caridad, who is living in Australia with her husband and daughter when she receives a letter from her mother. Her mother rarely wrote to her so when she received one, she knew it was with importance and urgency. The letter is short and simple; she is being summoned by her mother to come back to the Philippines. The letter does not indicate any reason but nevertheless Caridad goes back to the place she used to call home.
In this journey back to the place she left a decade ago she learns a vital secret that is told by three women with different views of the world. Each carries the burden of truth and courage to reminisce and retell the story that has long been shelved and forgotten. Theirs were not the easiest stories to tell. For theirs are intertwined with the history the world can never forget.
What I like about this book is that it injects heart and soul into the facts and figures we read about World War II. In history books, you can see black and white pictures, figures and descriptions about the war but it is the real experiences of those who survived that make it more appalling and inhumane. Just like how Schindler’s List aroused the emotions of its audience. We only know the figures; the number of people who died, of those who were homeless, of those who suffered. But we can only imagine the emotion; the fear, the uncertainty, the desperation.
The Last Time I Saw Mother provides an insight, without sacrificing the normal flow of the plot, into how Filipinos tried to survive during those trying times. It takes us back to Manila more than 50 years ago and shows how it was like for our ancestors to try to live under our conquerors, how to move around when the Japanese began occupying Manila, and how to remain alive when the World War II began.
Another reason I am fond of this book is because I can relate to Caridad’s feelings toward her mom. Growing up, I was not close to my mom. I vividly remember how her lips curled and eyes bulged when there was something she did not like. There were also a lot of things I did not understand then that she didn’t bother explaining. She was stern, strict and unwavering. But that changed when I was in my 20s. They say that you only get to appreciate your parents, especially your mother, once you become a mother yourself. But for me, it happened a lot earlier. I do not have a child yet so I do not know what it’s like to raise a child and, most of all, to experience it the way she experienced raising me and my siblings in circumstances wherein the Philippines as a nation was trying to build itself again. Right now, I somehow know the thoughts and consequences behind her decisions that I once thought irrational and cruel.
Most of the parents their age grew up in a very conservative society and during those times there were no seminars for first-time parents on how to raise children. There were few, expensive and very limited magazines and books regarding child development and psychology. Few talk shows on television were devoted to raising children and teens. I doubt if they were even keeping notes on how their friends were raising theirs. I also think they would rather spend their money on the family’s needs rather than hire a child psychologist. And all they could do and think of was to adapt how they were raised no matter how flawed it was and it was unfair to them for us to point fingers at them for that. They grew up experiencing the aftermath of the war and that was not the most conducive environment for children. I became close to my mom because I realized that nobody is prefect. My parents may have done so many wrong things or made wrong decisions in the past because, at that time, they thought that those decisions were the best for everyone. At that time it was the best they could do. But it never meant that they did not care.
Now my mom is making it up to me as Caridad’s mother did. It may not be as grave as telling a life-changing secret, but rather the small grudges I held through the years — like why she did not allow me to go camping when the campsite was just inside the school and our school was only 200 steps away from our house. Such situations may be small and irrelevant pieces now but still are part of my whole.