For Gen, on Mother's Day

I was almost certain that it was the eerie silence in that densely canopied part of the park that reminded me of her and had me furiously writing in this blog after that long jog. A silence so profound and disconcerting that even the intermittent falling of dried leaves, the hurried sound of insects, and the guttural gasps for air of consummate joggers passing by could not break. A silence so familiar. Yes, a silence akin to that of hers.

Several years ago, Genevieve literally faded out from the world and fell silent. Suddenly, she was nowhere to be seen or heard and no one had any idea how she was doing. She turned away from the world apparently to assuage the feelings of her insecure husband who had serious jealousy issues.

The decision was unexpected. This was because it was not in Gen's character. She has always been a fighter and a survivor. This was shown, for example, in how she shamelessly cried in front of the Student Records Officer of the College of Social Work and Community Development just so she can have her true copy of grades and she can transfer to the College of Arts and Letters. This was also shown in how she was able to make it through a hold-up situation inside a bus plying EDSA. Even at a young age, she has shown this tenacity; this drive to fight and survive by staging a daring escape to Manila. When her mother remarried, she disapproved of the union. She mounted an escape that will bring her and her sister to her aunt's place in Laguna. How they survived and was able to make it to her aunt's place were the kind of stories survivors are made of.

She has always been a dreamer, a believer in the beautiful in this world. This is the reason why she transferred to the College of Arts and Letters. Although she had a genuine concern for people that would have made her an excellent Social Work professional, her writing abilities and her love of literature were far more compelling. She was very good with words. They flow out of her naturally and effortlessly like a natural extension of her whole being. She wrote excellent poems that truly and sincerely embodied her. I attempted to answer her paeans to life, love and meaning but was effectively rebuffed. It was perhaps this eagerness and enthusiasm that endeared her to and inspired people. It was this quality that I once mistook as servile flattery. As in any real-life story, the hard realities of life attempted to dampen her indomitable spirit. She had to let go of a person she truly loved and cared for back in college because the gods were unkind or in the words of another poet-trying-to-be-an-engineer named Chris Aure, "love needs more than itself to survive." Thus, the decision to be silent and to turn away from the world and from her friends because of an insecure husband was not something you would expect of a fighter and dreamer like Gen. It was an abomination of everything she stood for.

The decision was also unacceptable. It reeked of oppression and it had unjust and unfair written all over. It was such a myopic, insecure, constraining, unjust, boring, and disempowering conception of love and marriage. It was even made more unacceptable by preceding events. This husband had showed violent streak in the past when they were still not married. I remembered Gen to be changing several phone numbers in a month because her then-boyfriend would actually throw her phones away in a fit of rage over petty things. Turning away from the world and from her friends was to nurture his violent tendencies.

I was determined to challenge her decision. I sent her messages. One day, I showed up in her house unannounced. I was turned away by this lanky, sophomoric guy at the front of their house saying that Gen wasn't around. But, before he said that he asked for my name. Turned out, he was the husband. Later on, I tried to console myself with the thought that she was happy; that maybe it was all worth it. That maybe, we all come to such decisions in our lives.

Lately, I have learned that her mother died of cancer. It's a pity because there could have been many things we could have shared as she was going through the whole process as my mom was also diagnosed with breast cancer some years back. Gen loved her mother very deeply and was her partner and inspiration. Randy David, a noted sociologist, in one of his articles once claimed that one of the greatest legacy a mother can give her children is the way with which they see themselves as women and how they treat women.

Here's hoping Gen would find herself again and fight for her mother's legacy. Happy mother's day.