Nixxi | Tagline Unnecessary.

It’s like a line from an overused plot scheme but this was how it all went down. So on the weekend that I turned 24, I finally met my mother. I guess a lot of finding-out happens this way, in ragged edges and uneven overlaps. In a sense, she has finally evolved from a largely evaded topic to an honest-to-goodness person. My father never really talked about her – all I know was that I was 2 years old when my Dad kidnapped – to be candid, me from Cebu. My own perceived notions about my mother was dim, I didn’t really expect anything. And I guess that was because I had an excellent mother figure growing up, my grandmother. She did a good job with us, the best that she could considering her age.

They (my mother’s siblings and their kids, cousins) threw a party at this wonderful place overlooking Cebu City for their father (my grandfather) who was turning 80. Despite a few mishaps regarding hotel rooms and cocktail dresses, my weekend went without a hitch.

Upon meeting my mother, I’d have to say that it was kinda like meeting a stranger for the first time. I didn’t really connect or know anything about her. We talked very little, more often I was bombarded with questions by her cousins and her siblings and I did my best in answering all of them. I guess this was to be expected, they haven’t seen me in so long and they had all these memories of me as a child that I cannot, for the life me, recall.

Though I was told about stuff that happened in her life and I guess she knows a little about what happened to me since I was two, everything else just didn’t matter anymore. And I didn’t feel like holding an interview like the Spanish Inquisition. All the trivialities just went out the window. A tabula rassa. After all that, the best we can be are good friends. I don’t feel compelled to seek her approval about things because I’m already an adult with my own life to live.

But when we sat down and watched my “cousins” and “titos and titas” dance, I was grateful for her silence. She didn’t feel the need to fill the air with boring small talk and just sat there, with me by her side. I hope the silence was as comfortable for her as it was for me.

So that was how I met my mother. I walked away from that weekend with a face to her name. Finally.