Mama Bebing

Mama Bebing passed away in the third week of September. Family and friends laid her to rest on October 3, the day after the last performance of the Cebuano zarzuela Minî at SM City Cebu Cinema 1. She would have been there to enjoy the play; I would have arranged that she be seated in the front row.

She was a great woman and I am writing this with deep grief in my heart. She was not perfect, though; there were certain things she was not very good at. But no one was ever better at being my Mama Bebing. She was one of a kind to me.

She was always her own person. She was friendly and convivial in her own way, but she never compromised herself for the sake of being popular. Her priorities were very much in order.

There was nothing Mama Bebing wanted more than being a good wife and mother, not necessarily in that order. I had gleaned it from our many conversations. Just like my own grandmother, her sister, she had worked in the crop fields and sold anything at the flea markets, in order to provide for the family. You would think she was a single parent, although she had an equally hard-working husband.

In my childhood, I had witnessed Mama Bebing hide away whenever Tatay Pelagio, her husband, was drunk. It was not as much for securing herself from the possible blows of her burly man as for saving their six kids from the public embarrassment of having their parents quarrel aloud. They stayed together as a couple, many years beyond their 50th wedding anniversary.

Women today would probably not follow her example. Women today would not give up of themselves for the sake of their husbands and children. Mama Bebing didn’t mind shortchanging herself; she chose to love her family over being right in the eyes of the world.

Last August, weeks before they would take her to the hospital, I came to see her. Not for any particular reason. I was visiting my mother in the province and thought it was good to see other loved ones, too.

She had shrunk much. But if you only fixed your eyes to her face, you’d think she was all right. How her lips formed when she spoke, the animated facial expressions, the sparkle in her eyes; they were all there. She asked if I wanted to take something; I begged her not to bother, but she asked the house help to bring me a cold drink anyway.

Her voice was soft, as usual, almost whispering. At times she would lower her voice some more and I had to aim my ear properly to hear what she was saying. It was her way of making me come closer.

But I knew she was not well. She had all the physical failings of an ageing person. I learned from her attendant that she had erratic blood sugar levels. Her blood pressure was not stable, either. And Mama Bebing herself complained to me that she was increasingly feeling tired.

There was an unmistakable air of loneliness about her. Tatay Pelagio had died years ago, and she missed him for sure. She asked why I seldom come home and see her. I joked that it was better that way so we would always treat each meeting like it was our last. She smiled.

Indeed, that meeting was our last. The woman I admired and loved passed away peacefully at age 89. She was lucid up to the very end, something that – she had earlier told me – she asked the Lord for, everyday. She didn’t want to be remembered as a senile old fogey.

I will incessantly remember Mama Bebing with warm affection and pride - the boiled overripe cardaba bananas that she would usually serve during my visits, our light talks about things nice and beautiful.

For many, many years in the past her singing at the nightly novena leading to the annual fiesta of our place was something I always looked forward to. She had a classical style, and the voice to match, that seemed to penetrate my soul.

When I first heard a recording of the famous opera singer Montserrat Caballe, I thought it was Mama Bebing. I told her about it and she was flattered, although she had never heard the diva. If only she had ample training like Caballe, my Mama Bebing would have been a world superstar too.

Her singing, however, was not as much appreciated in our rural place as her decorating skills. The way she would adorn the altar of the barrio chapel and the caro for the procession was always a sight to see. She had art running in her veins, no doubt.

Given that, I’m sure she would have loved to watch Minî. But the old lady couldn’t wait; she was tired and had to go. She was already “called to the Kingdom” that day, she told my brother.

And so, the applause at each curtain call of our musical play rang hollow to me. Empty because none of it came from the one person whose praise I would dearly treasure.

Bernabina Cono Cabahug, June 11, 1921—September 19, 2010; my superstar, my Mama Bebing:

I wish you a triumphant journey home to the Lord. Till we meet again.

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