A mother’s anguish knows no reason

EVEN before you were expecting your child, you started to have happy thoughts that helped form the fetus within, not only as an individual that carries yours and your husband’s genes, but also as a human being that you will soon deliver into the world in God’s “image and likeness.”

This fact alone has made your child the gift that you have asked God to bless your marriage with, and so the following nine months of gestation that you had to nurture the gift, though difficult, had become tolerable and made you anticipate the day that you will finally see your baby.

Then when the most awaited day has finally come, and you were told that you have to work hard in “labour” to let your child out into the world, you gave your all, knowing that by doing so, you are putting your life on the line as there is no guarantee that everything will be fine as you give birth to your baby.

But that is also a given, as you already gave your life even before you conceive your beautiful baby. Still, even with all the risk that you needed to take, you went ahead and have your most awaited moment.

Then when you successfully delivered your child, your nurturing did not stop there, as you need to nurse your baby and care for it every single day of her/his life, because only you, its mother, can do it and no one else in this world.

That is why, you are the nurturer of this world, the only assurance that life will continue to be, despite the hardships and difficulties that life brings. And so, you gave your whole existence to do what God has destined for you, by caring for your children. It is through your nurturing hands, with the help of your partner, that you fashioned God’s human creatures with your hands and your life.

That is why a mother’s love knows no bounds.

You will give everything, EVERYTHING, and do what it takes to continue caring for your children, even if it means sacrificing your own happiness, and giving everything they needed to exist, to surv i v e.

That is why when the unthinkable happens, and you lose your child, the one that you gave your whole self so that it may have a life worth living, it can only sear and wound your psyche so deeply.

It could only mean an unspeakable pain that could never be described by anyone.

OFW Lorenza delos Santos, Kian’s mother could be undergoing a revolting feeling of disquiet. Her child Kian, the 17-year-old, Grade 11 student who has become the latest victim of President Duterte’s drug war, and I could not imagine how she might have struggled to keep her emotions at bay.

The sadness, the anger, the longing to hold her son, once a little boy she used to hug and kiss and love a myriad of emotions could be drowning her sense of self.

When I read about Kian the other day, I was even unable to hold back the angry tears from flowing as I looked on his picture and his anguished family. I could feel and not only imagine the mother’s torment that words could never describe.

Seeing her in that state, the OFW who probably voted for President Digong when he wooed their approval in the last election, what could other mothers who have left their children in the national capital region might feel, who could be having sleepless nights over the recent spate of killings?

Thousands of mothers like Lorenza who sacrificed in foreign lands just so their children can have the education and a better life back home, could be fearing and uneasy for the safety and lives of their loved ones at home at this time. Anyone can be a victim, just by being “at the wrong place at the wrong time”. Period.

Has the president thought about this when he gave his all-out approval for the elimination of “drug suspects” even if they do not have clear evidence as proof, and just kill “because they are fighting back”?

Woe to us Filipinos who only hoped for peace when we voted for a man who PROMISED and VOWED to serve every Filipinos without discrimination.

“When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn.”