Steely determination
Marketing Executive Ellen Bernales for stay-at-home mom Remy Bernales
My mom, known as Aling Remy to her friends, never had a fairytale wedding, a college degree, a corporate career nor owned fancy mommy dresses and jewelries. If there is one movie that would describe her life back then as a young mother of three children, it is “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” Bad luck upon bad luck, heartbreak upon heartbreak. Her superstitious relatives would blame her seemingly endless bad luck to the mole on her right shoulder, calling it “pasang-krus.”
But one thing about her is we never saw her break down. Pasang-krus or not, she carried on with steel-like determination to raise her children on her own.
My father started another family in Cebu two or three years after my youngest brother was born. He had spent most of his time in Cebu and his financial support became irregular to none. Mom had to take in various jobs. She put up a comics rental stand at home, sold 2T oil to motorcycle drivers, worked in a factory and later on, became a high-speed sewer. At one point, we became “officemates” – I was employed as a “trimmer” at the shop where she worked.
We had experienced getting evicted a couple of times from our home for non-payment of rent. We had since then transferred from one city to another with our clothes in plastic bags and cigarette boxes. We lived in rented rooms and shared toilets with the rest of the neighbors. Life was hard, but mom, in her own magical kuripot way, was able to stretch her meager income – we never skipped meals and still were able to go to school. Despite her schedule at work, she still found time to cook, clean the house and made sure we have clean clothes to wear. We never had a tutor, a yaya, a helper nor a family doctor -- because she was all that. Mom taught and showed us how to be dutiful and responsible. We learned from her the true meaning of perseverance.
Today, when people would ask her how we managed to rise up from such an unimaginable hard life, mom would always say it is only through God’s grace that we have reached this far. At 68, Aling Remy now enjoys the good life she never even imagined before.