MOTHER’S DAY: IN MEMORY OF MY MOTHER NOW BEYOND THE VEIL

By: Norberto Betita

My mother FRANCISCA MANGLE GASTA BETITA married when she was sixteen years old. At such a young age she immediately started her role of motherhood. While her children were still young, she trained to be a dressmaker looking further to the future of raising a family. She also learned the trade of fish vending to assist her carpenter husband in providing the needs of the family. Her career preparations work well as she eventually experienced thirteen conceptions and raised and nurtured thirteen children---one twin, one still born and the youngest a child with special needs. Her motherhood and love was exemplary and her sacrifices so great as to allow us to live long to our maturity. She died at age 83, outliving four of her children.

She wakes up as early as 3:00 o’clock of dawn to meet the fishermen to buy their catch; left at about 4:00 o’clock in the morning to sell fishes at the market in Surigao, twelve kilometers away from our town. When she returned home in the afternoon, she sits on the sewing machine pew and starts sewing. That was her daily routine. She was a favorite dressmaker in town. 

She trained us to do daily household chores that at least we can assist in her combined motherhood and provider responsibilities. During our youthful years we used to have shared responsibilities at home and she taught us the virtue of hard work. We learned to plant and harvest rice although we didn't own a ricefield. We helped her in fish vending. As a boy I have good memories of being with her during her travels to sell fish in scheduled rural markets in distant municipalities. We usually carried with us a wooden box full of fishes which is very heavy. As we go home we buy fresh fruits and vegetables for resale at the Surigao market for profit. She takes whatever opportunity to earn more to be able to feed her thirteen growing children and support their other needs. She and my father made sure that we have food in our bowls, clothing on our backs and shelter over our heads, however meager their income may have been.

She is a very religious woman and very devoted to her faith. In the home she is the disciplinarian. I remembered once when she hit me with a piece of stick which broke and left a cut on my thigh because I refused to do a chore. For such I swore no longer to disobey her instructions. Her strict and firm disciplinary authority influenced us to do good and struggle through the ills of life. Indeed, her influece in our lives is beyond calculation.

One of the most memorable legacies that she left us was her very persuasive determination to educate all of us even in the midst of penury. She only finished fourth grade in elementary, which was good enough during their time. She is good in Arithmetic and English. She always encouraged us to study and do well in school. She reminded us that such is the only inheritance that they as parents could gave us which will remain with us individually for a lifetime. She seemed to know pretty well that education is the key that unlocks the bolted doors of future opportunities for us. She struggled so much together with our father to meet our educational obligations, but considering our number they often fall short. I remember well her unrestrained determination to help us finish college when on several occasions she would meet with the College President requesting to allow us to take the examinations through a promissory note. She told me of a story when the school issued a policy that no promissory note should be accepted. She had no money, but with courage undaunted, she went to the School President and requested that her promissory note be considered for the three of us siblings in college. Instead of signing the promissory note, the President gave her PHP50 to pay to the cashier for us to be allowed to take the examinations. She repaid the amount with best quality fishes. Most of us except the eldest and the youngest were able to complete high school education; some entered college but stopped in favor of job opportunities which were very rare during those times. Four of us completed college degrees. Such legacy was passed on and honored by our children—her grandchildren and great-grandchildren---most of whom were educated in college. 

Her unbounded faith and courage was tested best when I was born. I am the ninth child of thirteen. I was told in later years by my maternal grandmother, Tecla Mangle Gasta, that during the time when I was given birth my mother contacted a very serious illness and was brought to a hospital in Surigao for surgery. There was no bottle feeding at that time and so I have to share with a cousin who was born a year before for a breast feeding from my aunt. They thought she will not survive, but she did and continued to experience five more conceptions---one stillborn and four more to life.

I witnessed her angelic zeal and infinite love as she cares with complete dedication and fervor for our last born, who has a down syndrome despite her combined duty as mother and provider. Her commitment to her motherhood role was boundless. In her I saw an unlimited enthusiam and power to accomplish anything and everything for us and our future. She was the kind of a mother "who rock[s] a sobbing child without wondering if today's world is passing [her] by, because [she] knows [she] holds tomorrow tightly in her arms (Neal A. Maxwell)." Yet we, her children, did put limits to what we could have achieved in life, perhaps out of fear of the unknown and the empty knapsacks.

Not only did she mother thirteen of us, but she accepted another mothering responsibility when my elder sister died of cancer. Five young children were left for her to care for while their father worked abroad to provide for the family. When the father remarried, she was requested to continue to care for the children until they graduated from high school. She knew that such an extension of motherhood was to her a great challenge for she was already in her seniority, yet she accepted the responsibility and successfully led all her grandchildren to finish high school education as agreed. Her motherhood and grandmotherhood is a memorable reflection of God's loving presence in our family life.

She was born on March 9, 1921 and rested in peace on January 24, 2004. Despite her death defying conceptions and childbirths, an illness that almost cost her life, and the greatest challenges of raising and nurturing thirteen children and five grandchildren, she lived a most challenged yet a full happy life of 83 years.

On the night of June 3, 2005, I dreamed of her where she told me of her actual condition in the hereafter together with my father. The dream was repeated the same night. The following morning I requested my son Robert Sherwin and his wife Analiza to check on the records of my parents and requested them to perform the necessary ordinances for their eternal salvation. Immediately on June 4, 2005 all ordinances were performed and on June 24, 2005 their sealing ordinance as husband and wife was completed all at the Manila Philippines Temple. Two of their deceased children and myself were already sealed to them while the two other deceased are awaiting the ordinance to be performed by proxy. She never appeared in my dreams since then. She must have been so happy of what her grandson and granddaughter-in-law had done for them.

Throughout her life she had set the best example of being a wife, a mother, a great-grandmother, and a great-great-grandmother. In her I found the divine meaning and most sacred calling of motherhood. She exemplified the meaning of the statement that “Motherhood is near to divinity: It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to angels” (The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). We love her so very much. She will always be remembered with deepest gratitude by us and her posterity now and by those yet to come.