CEBU, Philippines — “Our life is a gift from God. What we do with our life is our gift to God.”
We give thanks to God for the gift of life. Our family especially thanks God for our mother, Rosario Otadoy Estrera, who celebrated her 100th birthday recently. She was born on October 4, 1917, into a humble family. She married our father, the late Eugenio Y. Estrera and together they had 10 of us children.
In the prime of her life, Mother was either pregnant, had small children, was raising teenagers or had kids in college. For many years, she was all of these. That would have been enough of an excuse to stay at home and take care of her kids.
But even before women’s liberation, Mom was already breaking glass ceilings. She had a career. She was a public school teacher, a good one and loved by her students. She was not satisfied with her BS degree in Education, she attended graduate classes during summer months at school break. She went on to earn her Master in Education degree. She became a head teacher, a school principal and a district school supervisor. It may be no big deal these days, but in her time she was the exception rather than the rule.
She raised ten God-fearing children whom she sent to the best schools to earn respectable degrees, in order for them to have a good chance at life. Our Mom and Dad’s constant encouragement to us their children was: “Study well. Get a college degree. Nobody can rob you of your education.”
And off to school we went. One of us has a Law degree from Ateneo and later retired as a regional trial court judge. One of us has an Economics degree and later became a vice mayor of our small town. One of us has an Education degree, like our parents, and he retired with a responsible position in the Bureau of Post. One of us is a Chemical Engineer, and yet another, a Certified Public Accountant.
The rest, all five of them, are Doctors of Medicine. I share this, not to boast but to honor the sacrifices that Mom and Dad did for us, their children. They were both public school teachers. They were not rich – in fact I remember going to the local sarisari store regularly as a child “para mangutang” (to buy something on credit). As kids, we did not have expensive toys. But we always had everything we needed. We had each other and we always knew that we were loved.
I thank Mom for her great example of deep love of family and of her deep faith. I remember that growing up, she would wake us up very early in the morning to pray for our brothers and sisters who were away at college when they had exams. Mom always led us in praying the novena to San Vicente Ferrer when somebody had to take the board exams.
I thank Mom for teaching us the value of hard work and for teaching us that with God, nothing is impossible. I thank Mom for the inspiration that she has been to each of us.
Happy 100th birthday, Mom. You’re my hero.