05/10/2026
THE REMARKABLE STORY OF MY MOM ❤️
To the woman who taught me what strength really looks like.
This is my mom. Let me tell you something about her.
My mom is the oldest of her sisters, one of 7 children. She survived the Japanese invasion of the Philippines as a little girl. To keep his children alive, my grandfather would bury them in the ground with only their heads above the soil, then cover their heads with vases and anything else he could find so the soldiers wouldn’t capture them. That’s the kind of survival my mom was born into.
She only finished the 5th grade before she had to work to help feed her family and even as a child, she was buying pencils and paper for her younger siblings so they could stay in school. That’s who she’s always been. The one who gives first.
She had 8 children of her own. She has buried 3 of them. The most recent my older sister, to stage 4 colon cancer. At the height of the pandemic, my mom got on a plane and flew back to the States to hold her daughter’s hand as she died.
When my dad passed with no life insurance, my mom worked 2 and 3 jobs to raise the 4 of us still at home. She became a dietitian and worked in that field for 22 years. And somehow, on her rare days off, she still cooked for us, still took us to amusement parks, still sent money home to her parents in the Philippines.
A few years ago, she went into 100% renal failure. And do you know what she did? She flew to Japan to see her sisters one more time, then flew to Vegas for treatment. The doctors will tell you she shouldn’t have survived that flight. But God wasn’t done with her yet.
War. Famine. Poverty. Losing her husband. Burying her children. Losing her closest sister. Renal failure.
And she just… kept going. No breakdown. No bitterness. She walked through the fire and came out the other side still soft enough to grow orchids the rarest orchids you’ve ever seen. She covers them in cheesecloth in the winter like they’re her babies. She talks to them because she swears they can hear her. And I believe her. Anything that grows under my mother’s hands knows it’s loved. My mom is my HERO!! Every time I think about her, I get the sense of pride and gratitude!! “ yeah that’s my mom”
To every mother reading this the ones working two jobs, grieving in silence, giving everything and asking for nothing I see you. What you carry is holy. Happy Mother’s Day ❤️❤️
