Only a mother will die for us

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.”

—William Makepeace Thackeray

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

WITH due respect to all fathers, I grew up believing that only mothers are willing to die—or will sacrifice their life—for their children.

There may have been cases where fathers died (or will die) for their children, but nothing can beat the heart and spirit of a mother when it comes to the love for her child. 

This hypothesis has been proven time after time—not only in the movies and literature; not only in history books, in the classical times, in mythology, in ancient folklore and antiquity, during war and peace, great depression, tragedy and calamity, and even during the pandemic. 

Mothers arguably love their children more than themselves.

Since time immemorial, mothers have always been the protagonists and witnesses of their children’s physical evolution and personality development.

In the sculpture commissioned by a French Cardinal living in Rome, there’s a popular subject among northern European artists. 

It’s the Pieta, which means Pity or Compassion, and represents Virgin Mary sorrowfully contemplating the dead body of Jesus, her son, which she holds on her lap. 

 

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The mother’s extra-ordinary love for her children can even be manifested in the animals, including the domesticated dogs, ducks, pigs, chickens, birds, sheep, among other livestock and ruminant mammals.

They fight to death vis-a-vis the humans who will try to harm or take away one of their children. 

Their instinct is to protect their children even if they will all be slaughtered together. 

From life to death, mothers have this unique feeling not present in the fathers that giving life to a newborn is an act of faith in the future. 

A commitment that like another great truth, reflects the sublime sensation of being a mother.

We have heard of countless stories about mothers who took the bullets and samurai for their children literally and figuratively.

Hungry mothers who foraged and begged for food not for themselves, but for their starving children.

 

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Of mothers who lost their minds trying to locate their lost children (Example: Sisa’s Crispin and Basilio in Jose Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere”).

Mothers who got killed after grappling with mad dogs, snakes, and other wild animals to save their children from imminent death.

What happened in Paniqui, Tarlac in the Philippines on December 21 when an off-duty Paranaque cop Jonel Nuezca murdered a 52-year-old mother Sonya Gregorio and her drunken 25-year-old son, Frank Anthony, was another real life example of how a mother would react and go to the extent just to shield an embattled son.

Although mother and son reportedly died on the spot outside their house after being shot twice each at short range, Sonya, who was hit on the head, must have died ahead of her son.

Before the shooting, millions of people who have seen the controversial video taken by Sonya’s young grandchild and uploaded on Facebook, must have noticed how a mother wanted to protect Frank Anthony from the trigger-happy maniac.

Embracing him tightly, she never let go of her son, who was being accosted by the angry police officer in a quarrel over an improvised noise maker known locally as Boga, “till death do them part.”

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)