My Mommy Is Beautiful

February, 2012

MY MOMMY IS BEAUTIFUL

MOMMY

Yoko Ono has a website called “My Mommy Is Beautiful”. A few years ago, on Mothers Day, I posted this on that site. Now I want to post it to the rest of the world.

Alice Jones
RIZALINA LEAÑO DIMALANTA, wife to a husband who adored her throughout his life, mother of 7 children most of whose friends wish she was their mother too, grandmother of 12, great grandmother of 3, everybody's agony aunt. She is an accomplished singer, painter, choreographer, oratory coach, erstwhile dressmaker and dress designer to daughters and various female relatives whom she temporarily adopted at one time or another. She is beautiful, exceptionally talented, and loved by all who know her- even recipients of her very special brand of tough love. I love her.

Mommy died last Friday, February 17, 2012. I delivered this eulogy during a memorial tribute at her wake which we, her children, turned into a celebration of her life and her art:

Mommy was a wartime bride. She was 17. Daddy was 26 when they married but he first met her when he, himself barely out of his teens, fresh out of Bayambang, Pangasinan, was accompanied by his mother to the big city to study Engineering in Mapua. (He promptly dropped out as soon as she went back home to Pangasinan.) The house she selected for her son to board in was my Lolo’s (a friend of a friend). And there he met and watched my mom grow up into the beautiful girl he was to marry.

As a young mother to seven children, she was also a surrogate mom to Tita Nati, Manang Linda, Tita Mel, plus an assortment of friends and friends’ children who spent important periods of their lives under her guidance and protection.

Mommy’s life was infused with art.

I remember watching a spectacular stage presentation of a dance drama Mommy choreographed for a friend and neighbor, Virgie Banaag. Remember I was a child then, so my recollection of it may be larger and more spectacular than it really was, but she won the top prize.

At my school, at the request of (then) Mother (later Sister) Theonille, Mommy designed and produced the cover of a school publication to mark the Marian year celebration.

As coach to my brother Edwin for his school’s oratorical competition, Mommy impressed the judges with her smart choice of a rather obscure piece that went on to win Edwin an award and much acclaim from the audience for his polished delivery- the product of hours of drilling. Ever the perfectionist, Mommy had her protégé practicing daily on his lunch break, perched on top of the family dining table. She picked him up from school and brought him back after lunch and practice, on foot.

In her 60’s, she decided to become a painter so she enrolled in painting classes at the Ayala Museum. She had developed an interest in painting early in life when her father, Lolo Polonio, first took her to the house of his artist friend, Nanding. This Nanding happens to be the great Filipino master and national artist, Fernando Amorsolo. On one occasion, Lolo asked him to help Mommy with her school assignment. The assignment she submitted the next day was a sketch done by the master himself. Imagine that!

At Mommy’s 80th birthday party, my brother Ezy invited entertainer Dale Adriatico to play the piano for her. That was all she needed to launch into an impromptu concert. She was of course, a hit. Soon after that, she recorded four of her favorite songs with musical director and arranger Danny Favis.

Mommy has had a fabulous life. And she took us all, her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and various relatives and friends, along on a fantastical, magical ride.
Even during her final, most difficult weeks, Mommy was still at it, leading her pack, in a fabulously poetic grand race, chasing sunsets.

But Mommy’s life was not just about art. She was a devoted mother to us her seven children. We are, rightly or not, the product of her unique brand of nurturing. She taught, she coached, she inspired, she pushed, she criticized. And oh how she criticized! She was one tough momma.

So here we are, all seven of her children. Far from being the accomplished, confident, superior beings she had hoped to mold us into, here we are. A sorry lot. Yet, she was exceedingly proud of us. Mothers do tend to be funny that way. Mommy loved us and she was proud of us. As we are of her.

We don’t expect to get over losing Mommy anytime soon. We probably never will. But we have decided to make this occasion not one of grieving this loss but one of celebrating the privilege of having her, even for just a while.

Please join us in a toast. To our mother! She taught us to be the best we can be.

Cheers!