A mother's love

“Sana ako na lang” (“I wish it was me instead”). This expression, usually spoken in anguish, we often hear from mothers when her child is ill or worst, when her child dies.

This motherly wish became a reality Wednesday night (August 7, 2008) when a 30-year old mother died after being run-over by a speeding SUV. But not before she saved her 10-month old son by throwing him away out of harm’s way.

This little bit of news from a police blotter got buried deep in the inside pages of yesterday’s newspapers (August 8, 2008) amidst the more interesting 08-08-08 news of the Beijing Olympics opening, the number of babies born, and the number of weddings on this once-in-a-lifetime of a calendar date.

Not being a mother, I searched deeply within me how a mother can totally forget herself for her own child’s sake even at the cost of her own life.

And it reminded me a of a mother’s profound grief after having lost a child: “A child usually buries a parent, or a wife buries her husband, but a mother burying her child?” And there was too a mother who in anguished asked: “When a child loses a parent, you call him/her an orphan; when a wife/husband loses a spouse, you call her/him a widow/widower. But what do you call a mother who loses a child?”

Then I thought of my own Inang who gave me life and who taught me all the values I hold to this day – hard work, consideration for others, and love of family, among others. She was, in today’s lingo, a “supermom”, having raised seven children single-handedly on an ordinary government employee’s salary. I have no doubt that given the opportunity to do so, she would also have given her life for anyone of us her children. And I say this because she has often said that her one prayer to God is for her not to see any of her children die ahead of her. God granted her prayer.

Going back to our little news story, that mother must have kept in her heart Jesus’ message for all of us: “No greater love than this…..”