National Post (National Edition)
From Janet, with LOVE
JENNIFER HAYDOCK’S MOTHER IS A PEN-PAL BRIDE FROM THE PHILIPPINES. SHE’S TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF HER MOTHER’S STORY AND UNDERSTAND HER OWN, AS HELENE KLODAWSKY EXPLAINS.
My existence can be traced back to a single image.
My father, Danny, keeps an old photo of my mother, Janet, in his wallet — a tiny fading studio shot, tattered from being touched a million times or more.
My mother was only 17 when the picture was taken. Dad first saw it in a pen-pal catalogue for men seeking Filipina wives in 1989. Back then, Mom worked as a maid in a Manila boarding house, saving pennies, prioritizing night school over sleep and dreaming of attending university.
They wrote to each other for 18 months before Dad flew from Montreal to meet her — carrying a gift box with a soft feather pillow inside because he felt bad knowing Mom slept on the floor. Then, within two weeks of arriving, 27-year-old Danny married Janet and returned to his factory job in Canada three days after the wedding ceremony.
My mother was 21 when she left the Philippines, a little younger than I am now. She had never heard of Canada until she met my father. This year my parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. To make up for the honeymoon she never had, Mom bought a white dress on sale and wore a sparkling crown.
I try to imagine what propelled her to leave her homeland and build a new life here — a masterpiece journey of daring, sacrifice and dreams. Her legacy includes the crushing poverty of her homeland and the many ways that poor Filipinos are compelled to fill the ranks of low-wage labour worldwide. But she doesn’t dwell on the hardship, insisting instead on creating meaning from her circumstances, pushing herself to be the best person she can be.
Sometimes I can’t understand her choices, just as she has difficulty grasping the world I have inherited. Learning to accept one another is a big part of our relationship.
Today, in addition to her nineto-five job at an international shipping firm, my mom works evenings and weekends so she can send extra money to the Philippines. “People say that Filipinos come to Canada just to send money back home,” she observes. “We work when there is work. And besides, who else would do it?”
Washing dishes, cleaning houses, serving private parties, watering plants. The strangest job she ever had was checking the heads of a wealthy white woman’s grandkids for lice.
While working and raising my brothers and me, Mom earned a nursing-aid diploma and now spends 30 extra hours a week bathing, feeding and changing people too old and frail to care for themselves. She barely clears minimum wage after the agency’s cut, but she prefers working “private” because, “In nursing homes people are grumpy. There are too many patients and not enough time.”
“My nursing aid job is very challenging. It means being intimate with someone much older and even changing diapers. Who would have thought that I could do this? Many people don’t value it properly, but it’s still dignified, important work.”
After her day job, my mother only has an hour to dash to a client’s upscale apartment by way of “B-M-W” — her joke for bus, metro, walk. She laughs, “If you want to feel rich, go to where rich people live.”
Always fundraising, she stops along the way to return office soda cans for cash. Later, deep into the night after a double workday, BMW delivers her back to our home on Montreal’s south shore.
Then she’s up again at 6:30 to walk my youngest brother Alex to the school bus. On Saturdays, her 13-hour caregiving shift starts at 7 a.m., after an hour on the road. On top of all that, she’s also writing a book — a memoir none of us has seen — in her “spare time.”
Her energy amazes me. No matter her workload, she describes herself as motivated, strong, and happy. Pity drives her mad. Where others might complain, Mom sees opportunity: “This morning at 5:20, while I was waiting for the bus, I sensed that God was with me. I was praying for all the people around me, even the trees, insects, and plants and our Mother Earth, but mostly for the bus driver to be on time. I was so relaxed being alone and feeling happy, thinking of all the people still sleeping, especially my family.”
Every evening, after her client is changed, fed, and flossed, and the apartment is wiped clean to perfection, Mom checks her email and Facebook feed. Messages flow back and forth between her rural home village and its dispersed flock: “Good day Janet, I would like to express my gratitude for giving me financial aid for my schooling. May God bless you and more bounty will come.”
Five of Mom’s eight surviving siblings have also left Toboso, their poor fishing village in central Philippines. Remittances from around the world help fund village essentials like the medical clinic, a firetruck, and clean water. Filipinos are raised that way, and my mother relentlessly embodies the values associated with her heritage: compassion and sacrifice.
My parents’ modest salaries haven’t limited their charitable ambition. Mom’s proud that the son of a penniless family is now a police officer. That hundreds of children in hard-to-reach mountain schools eat lunch every day.
She hates refusing any of the requests that come in from all over the Philippines. She has so many fundraising schemes, even my father doesn’t know about them all. But he supports her fully, and Mom still sees him as the loving, funny champion of her dreams. Once a week it’s date night.
She’s a long way from the 12-year-old girl in Toboso who aspired to marry a “white guy” one day. When her aunt left to marry a Swede and later returned with blond, light-eyed children, it made a deep impression. To Mom, white people represented all that was prosperous, promising and good. She determined that marriage was both a ticket towards self-realization and a way to help her siblings and mother.
Today, my two brothers and I are Janet’s white and brown family — minus the blond hair and light eyes! Lola, my grandmother from the Philippines, lives with us as well. When she and Mom converse in Tagalog and Visayan, they breathe Filipino heritage into our home.
Sunday is my mother’s only day off. It consists of non-stop visits to and from Dad’s large, close family, preparing big “repatriate boxes” filled with clothes and school supplies for the Philippines, cooking dinners with Lola, calling far-off friends and listening to those in need.
Once a month we have family meetings where everyone speaks their mind. When it’s Mom’s turn, she emphasizes self-improvement, suggesting we visit our frail grandparents to cultivate compassion. “It’s the Filipino way,” she stresses in a way that leaves little room for debate. But as my brother Stanley says, “While our values don’t always match up, Mom accepts us for who we are.”
As a six-year old, on my one and only visit to the Philippines, I saw firsthand where Mom’s values came from. I took pride in the help she provided our community and kin. She was my heroine and I wanted to be just like her. But growing up in Montreal, there’s a cultural barrier that hinders our ability to connect. Even as I look up to my mother, I never want to be in her place.
When I talk back and scream, “We’re in Canada; not the Philippines,” I feel ashamed. But words that wound are also my shield.
My mother’s stories can bring me to the point of outrage. When I feel she is being treated as just another “submissive, replaceable Filipina,” I want her to stand up for herself, as I would in her shoes. She is so generous, perhaps to the point of being taken for granted by people and institutions that consider themselves superior. It’s the kind of injustice I am determined to defy.
Like my mother, I can love without strings and give freely. But setting boundaries is important, too. I’ve worked to learn to say “no” and overcome my fear of disappointing others. To live authentically and trust my opinions.
Mom tells me, “Growing up here, you will never really understand the hardship I experienced and my struggle to improve.”
My mother is a constant reminder that I am neither completely Canadian nor Filipina.
With her blessing and example, I will make my own way.