MIRROR, MIRROR: I AM MY MOTHER’S DAUGHTER
By Stephanie A. Pitoy - 2005

Dear Mom: From the day that I was born, relatives and friends of our family have always told how I remind them a lot of you. It is true; whenever I look in the mirror, I see you looking back at me. Many of my mannerisms and personality traits I have inherited from you. When I speak, your voice of wisdom speaks with me. Your spirit is very much alive in me. Neither one of us have had too search too far to find common ground. We are more alike than we are different. You never said that you were perfect. But in my eyes, you are the perfect mother for me. Yes indeed, I am proud to be your daughter.
When you passed away four years ago (July 20, 2001), an immense tidal wave of sorrow consumed me. I tried desperately to stay afloat in my sea of tears as I helped Dad plan your funeral. Our emotions remained rather raw in the days following your passing. We were all consumed by this overwhelming sense of anguish. As tender as we were, where could we go with this immense pain? The tenderness of our grief we kept contained within the walls of our home. No one dared to expose the vulnerable side of ourselves. We kept silent. Being your oldest child, I took on the responsibility of bearing the emotional burden of our family; I absorbed their pain along with my own. I knew that Dad was crying on the inside. I saw the inner tears that he did not want the rest of the world to see. I so wanted to help Dad, Ben, and Rochelle talk about our loss, but that is not their style. Grief is a beast that cannot be tamed in its early stages. Suspending my desire to address our grief, I retreated to the sea of my inner silence. I set sail on my own to deal with your untimely death.
I found comfort in knowing that you passed quietly in your sleep. As I sat by your bedside, I wondered what you were dreaming about. The slumber of your diabetic coma brought about an aura of solace and serenity. There you were with this completely peaceful look on your face. It seemed as though you were preparing yourself for the departure to your new world. Were you having a conversation with God as to when you would be leaving us? Were you negotiating the terms of your departure? In keeping with your strong-willed nature, I pictured you asking God to give you more time with your husband, children, and grandchildren. After your last rites were read by the Reverend Kondo of the Honpa Hongwanji Hilo Betsuin, did you hear me say that it was okay for you to go?
Somewhere deep inside of myself I found the courage to recite your eulogy. The last thing that I worried about was being eloquent. In writing your eulogy, I summoned all of the tender emotions that Dad, Ben, Rochelle, and I were experiencing and painted a beautiful portrait of who you were. Delivering your eulogy was a very healing and cathartic experience. I wanted to let our family know that it was okay to cry, that it was okay to let our vulnerabilities be exposed, so that the beast of grief can be tamed. That day was a start.
Mom, you fought a good fight. Your body may have been frail and slowly deteriorating, but your mind and your spirit remained strong throughout your seven year battle (1994-2001) with Parkinson’s disease. Considering you were also a lifelong diabetic and had suffered two strokes which left you completely paralyzed on your right side, unable to speak, and physically incapable of taking care of yourself. Even though you lost the capacity to speak, you kept the lines of communication open between us. Your voice had barely become a whisper, but your eyes spoke for you; they became your voice, your connection to the world outside of your ailing body. I am still blown away the incredible amount of physical suffering that you endured. Why you? Why were you taken from us at such a young age? You were only fifty-eight years old when you died. Why must I live my life without a mother? Why our family?
For me, it was a tremendous challenge trying to balance taking care of you, Dad, Kianna (then only an infant), my part-time job at the UH-Hilo Bookstore, and my full-time undergraduate class schedule. But, there was no time to cry about it. Not once did we sit down together and talk about how we were feeling. All that kind of talk was avoided, especially by Dad, Ben, and Rochelle. We cast aside our own personal concerns and focused all of our energy on caring for you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Not too many families can say they would make the same kind of personal sacrifices that we made. The option of hiring respite care support was never brought up by any of us. Dad refused any help from those outside our family. His Filipino pride did not allow for it. The truth is I wish we did have that kind of support. There were days when the stress levels were just too much. I yearned to be just your daughter and not your caregiver.
Mom, I truly miss having an adult mother-daughter relationship with you. During my adolescent years, we did not have a chance to build on a close relationship. My stubbornness got in the way of getting to know the woman that you were. I often wondered if I could live up to your expectations of me. Would I have disappointed you if I did not follow in your footsteps and not become a registered nurse? I misinterpreted a lot of your anecdotes as you telling how to live my life. I was under the false impressions that you trying to control the course my life. The truth is you only had my best interests at heart. If only I took the time to truly listen to what you were saying. Do you hear me talking to you as I lay in bed at night? Do you hear me now?
Do you remember that conversation that we had in the kitchen? I remember that brief exchange as if it happened yesterday. The year was 1993 and I had returned home from my first semester away at the University of Hawaii at Manoa for the Thanksgiving holiday. That same month, I had just turned the legal age of twenty-one. You and I were sitting quietly together at the kitchen table. You smiled proudly and said: “I see a real change in you. There is an air of maturity about you. You certainly have grown up a lot since you have been away from home.”
Hearing you say those words meant the world to me. That little talk we had was an emotional turning point in our relationship. You saw into me. You saw my potential to become whatever I wanted to be. You gave me the validation that I needed to continue my search for the “real me.” Oftentimes, it is in retrospect that we hear the intended messages in our verbal exchanges with others. On that poignant day, I heard what you said. I remember it still because I felt your motherly warmth and sincerity. I allowed myself to hear your words and believed them to be true.
I know that you are in a much better place. You are no longer suffering. You are free from the confines of your wheelchair. You are free from the debilitating pain of Parkinson’s disease. Diabetes no longer dictates what you can or cannot eat. The paralysis from your two strokes no longer limits your bodily movements and ability to speak. You have been reborn into a life anew.
When I make time for silence, I hear your voice. I hear your laughter. I hear you whisper my name. I hear you lovingly say how proud you are of me. I see us having the kind of mother-daughter relationship that I have always dreamed of having with you. I see us relaxing and chatting like I do with my close circle of friends. I wish we had more time to make this dream come true. I wish I could share my future triumphs and milestones with you. I wish we had more time to make up for the silence that we shared in the past. I just wish you were here still.
Your passing has been a rite of passage. Day by day, I am accepting the reality of your death and I am not dwelling on my own mortality. You may have passed on at the age of fifty-eight, but that does not necessarily mean that I will as well. I have my own timeline in that regard. I have found joy in my life again. And, I know that you are watching over me, providing the motherly guidance with hidden hands. Your presence is felt everyday. In my dreams, I see you appear, smiling and letting me know that you are okay. Know that your spirit and memory will live on forever. Mirror, mirror on the wall: I see you, I see me.