Ascension ‘Inday’ Avila: A son’s tribute

I expected last Sunday to be a quiet, uneventful day for me, but then we could never predict what’s in the mind of God… that he would choose that day to mark my mother’s entry to eternal life. Yes, my mom, Mrs. Ascension "Inday" Segura Avila, passed away in her sleep early dawn of Aug. 13, 2006. She was 86 years old. My sister, Adela Kono, called me by mid-morning to come quickly to her house (we all live in a family compound) because our mother had died. This sounded impossible to us because my mother was still strong and often walked to church alone. She was never ill nor was she ever hospitalized for any health problems. But God’s will be done, not our will!

Inday Avila was born on May 13, 1920 to Capt. Valeriano and Encarnacion Segura. She was the third in the Segura family with two elder brothers, Architect Gregorio and Col. Manuel, ahead of her and she was followed by Salvador, Fe de Jesus, Eduardo, Dr. Alfredo and Dr. Oliverio Segura. There were also her half-brother Andres Villarin and half-sister Conchita Rocamora.

When she passed away last Sunday, she was exactly 86 years and three months old and among the eight Segura siblings, she is the first to pass through a new life with God. This was quite a shock to her brothers and sister because of the four of them who were already more than 80 years old, she was the most physically fit.

Often, when someone young dies, we make jokes, saying, "Only the good die young." If any, I never ever thought that the year 2006 would be her final year here on earth. Her passing was to say the least unexpected although she was 86 years old. Only the good die young? To us and her friends like Mrs. Belen Japzon, Mrs. Vilma Lee and Mrs. Gloria Escaño and the members of Zonta Cebu I, she was still a young woman, ready to do her daily charity work… which was the main object of her life.

Inday Avila was one of the pillars of the Woman’s Club in Cebu, running the Cebu Maternity Hospital. She was with the Catholic Women’s League (CWL) of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Unit Capitol Parish and the Ladies of Charity Medalla Milagrosa Unit. But her lifelong work was when she created the Cebu Society for Cripple Children Inc. (CSCCI) on Aug. 10, 1965, whose primary objective is to establish medical and educational facilities for the crippled children of the city and province of Cebu.

Our youngest and only sister, Mrs. Adela Kono, was born on June 23, 1960, and by God’s will, she contracted a dreaded virus called poliomyelitis when she was two and a half years old. I can’t forget those days when we went to the Velez Clinic to visit her, but we were barred from entering because the doctors were scared that the virus could be contagious to children.

As Adela grew up, my mother realized that there were no facilities that the government and the private sector had in store for crippled children to grow up like other children, and in her frustration, she took the cudgels and created one herself with her friends. Today the CSCCI has been in the service of Cebu’s disabled children for 41 years with a school for the crippled within the confines of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center. A few years ago, Rep. Raul del Mar donated an ambulance to the CSCCI though they wanted a school bus, but an ambulance was better suited for the crippled kids.

We all grew up in an environment where Caritas or charity, which according to the first encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI Deus Caritas Est means God’s Love, was an everyday work for my mother. While she assisted our father, the late Atty. Jesus "Lindong" Avila, in our family business… her focus and her joy was her charity work.

Perhaps by some kind of premonition because my daughter, Dr. Frances "Fara" Tequillo, is already a doctor and my second daughter, Katrina, already graduated from nursing, both from the Cebu Doctor’s University, my mother asked her grandchildren to assist her at the Capitol Parish clinic because Dr. Alex Mediano was away on vacation. So the whole month of June, every Tuesday and Thursday, from 2 to 4 p.m., the Capitol Parish clinic became a family affair of sorts, with Fara assisting the patients, Katrina serving as nurse and their Lola Inday dispensing medicines to the poor.

If any, I share with my mother her passion for music, where she played the piano (which we got from our neighbor Mrs. Charlotte Martin in the mid 70s) and her favorite piece was from Chopin’s Nr. 4 No.4 in C sharp minor and Moonlight Sonata; she taught me to play this piece from memory as I could not read musical notes.

Perhaps the best legacy my mother left us, her children, are the love of God and Mama Mary. This was why I joined the Legion of Mary when I was in high school and perhaps my spiritual training began within our home. In our old home in Parian on Ibarra street, she built the first statue of Our Lady of Lourdes and when we moved to our present residence, she and my father constructed a statue of the Sacred Heart, that was why our family home was often mistaken for a retreat house.

Her passing means, I have lost not only my mother, but also my neighbor, my officemate (I shared my office cubicle with her), my music mentor, a faithful daily reader of my columns, and an avid fan of my show, Straight from the Sky. I recall that in the past, whenever I wrote columns attacking priests for various reasons, she would always tell me, "Don’t attack them, but pray for them." Years later, I realized what she meant… that after all, priests are not exempted from the snares of Satan and need our prayers more than the rest of us. Now I do pray for our priests and for a lot of them.

Looking at her lifeless body in her bed, I cried not because of sadness that she was gone, but rather from the realization that my brothers, Rene and Nanette, Benjamin, and my wife, Jessica, Juan and Jane and my sister Adela and Yuki Kono have become orphans. Inday Avila was not a Bible-reading woman, but she taught me something from Scripture on John 6:53, "Jesus said to them, ‘I’m telling you the truth; if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in yourselves.’" That’s why she went to Mass and received her daily bread in Holy Communion every day. So you know what to do when you ask the Lord for our "daily bread."

Ascension Avila was born on Mama Mary’s day on May 13, she died on the 13th of August and we buried her on the Feast of the Assumption. Clearly, this was all God’s will. We shall always cherish the life and times of our Mother Inday and with our childlike faith, we know that she is in God’s presence. Mommy, we love you and adieu from all of us.

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For responses to this article, e-mail to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns in The Freeman can also be accessed through The Philippine STAR website (www.philstar.com). He also hosts a weekly talkshow, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable. Bobit’s columns can also be accessed at www.shootinginsidecebu.blogspot.com