Mother and Son : A Story

                                               Mother and Son : A Story 

                                                              msgayeta

           Let me tell you a story . A true story of a mother and her son , her only child. This happened  about twenty years ago. She  was  a Filipina who belonged to the lower stratum of society . Life was hard . As a single parent , she tried  to make both ends  meet  for  her son , her mother and herself. With her limited schooling ,  she could only do menial jobs . And no matter how hard she tried , there was never enough  food on the table---let alone sufficient clothes on their backs  and vitamins which her baby needed.  Every time she imagined the future , she saw only a  bleak life for her son. Probably , she could send him up to elementary school in a public institution . But nothing more than that. And what life would he have with just an elementary school diploma  in his hand ? The same sorry life as hers ?
            She mustered  her courage and  made  a very difficult decision . She accepted a job overseas as a household helper. Kissing her son good- bye , she made a silent promise of escape from their wretched  existence .  The mother  left as a migrant worker  in the  mid-1970s .  ( Nowadays , she’d be called an OFW. )  That time , her son was just a baby , about a year old. She left him in the care of her mother. In Saudi Arabia , she worked her hand to the bones , doing household chores for almost 18 hours a day . She scrubbed floors , washed the laundry , brushed toilet bowls  and took care of her employers’ children . The poor woman  was always exhausted at the end of the day . At night , as she laid her worn out body on her bed , she would press  her baby’s picture close to her heart and  dream of the day when she could hold him again.

              This drudgery  went on for a decade . She was not able to go home for a vacation during those ten years. Not even once .  She was  a  victim of illegal recruiters and  had no legal documents in Saudi Arabia. Thus , it was very easy  for her employers to abuse her   and deprive her of her rights.  

           Because there  was  no internet and cell phone at that time , she rarely got the chance to communicate with her mother and  her growing son . Anyway , at last , after a decade ,  someone offered  to help her  get out of Saudi Arabia . She  also got a job  offer   for a  caregiver in Israel.  Without hesitation , she accepted the job . So , from Saudi Arabia ---she went straight to Israel  where she  worked  for about seven years .  There , she took care of elderly people ---- fed them, gave them their medicines , bathed them  and  washed  their laundry soiled with urine and feces .  She did for them what their own children  could not do.

              As before , she sent almost  all of her   salary  to her family in the Philippines. For some reasons again , she was not able to go home for a vacation during those years. Most likely ,  she  had legal problems  again  and  did not know what to do . Or maybe , she  took advantage of every opportunity to earn money---thus , opting not to have a vacation . Maybe  she thought , the  faster she earned  money , the sooner she could go home  for good. 

            Meanwhile , her son had grown into a young man. Because the son was just a baby when the mother left , he had no memory of seeing her face to face . He only knew  his mother’s face through  old , faded pictures . While in Israel , the mother was able to communicate with her family from time to time , by phone. Eventually , they were able to exchange a few pictures--- and this only intensified their hunger  and  hope  to see each other again.   This was the  late 1980s  and early 1990s.

                One day ,  this woman  was  in a bus on her way  to work . It turned out , terrorists  had planted  a  bomb in that bus. It exploded and  killed almost all of the passengers---including this Filipina. She died instantly . Her body sustained gaping wounds and her face --- with the flesh severely torn ---   had become unrecognizable . Her body was shipped back to the Philippines in a metal casket which  was welded to prevent  anyone from opening it .  Israeli and Filipino authorities decided it was best to seal the casket so that no one else could see  the mangled body  and face of the  poor woman . Outside Israel ---the gore  , they correctly decided , should be  concealed  within  the four corners of the coffin.

            So , finally , after seventeen years , this Filipina  went back  home . At long last , mother  and son were  reunited , with the mother in a sealed casket. All those years , the young man longed to see  and to touch  the face of the  woman who brought him to this world.  But now , he could only touch  the cold metal coffin that hid her cadaver .  And all those years in foreign lands  , the mother cried herself to sleep , yearning to cuddle her son . But up the  end of her life , she was denied that chance .

               Could   life  be crueler than this ?  

          Maybe , somewhere … in a  world better than this   …in another lifetime not decayed by violence  ,   they would meet again . The mother  singing  a lullaby and  the son falling  asleep in her arms…