Did you cry?
Several people close to me had asked me after the virtual wedding of our eldest child last weekend.
I happily replied to all of them…Nope, I did not.
Quite unexpected from someone like me who is THE emotional one. The one who cries easily while watching dramas or reading novels.
We have that expression in Filipino, “mababaw ang luha”, which literally means shallow tears. Well, I am that.
I easily cry at weddings especially at the sight of parents walking down the aisle with their soon to be married children. Ofcourse, I cried at my own wedding too.
But this time, during the virtual wedding of my own son, my firstborn, I didn’t.
Well at least, not during the virtual wedding itself nor immediately after.
But only after all the hullabaloo had died…
Only after all the high adrenaline that had been building inside my body the past weeks finally dissipated…
Perhaps because it was virtual…and the distance dampened some of the emotion.
Perhaps because our son had been engaged for more than a year prior to the wedding and I have had more than enough time to emotionally be ready for it.
Perhaps because the pandemic has taught me to value love, relationships and time even more thus secretly hoping that this union would happen soon.
Perhaps because the weeks preceding the event had been so hectic and there was no time for the event to finally sink in.
Truthfully though, when tears did come…there was a lot of it.
It came 2 days after the wedding while seated alone in our dining table not for a meal but to compose a FaceBook post.
It came after fun memories of our family seated in the same dining table flooded my consciousness. Memories of my children, young, happy, carefree and oh so hungry for attention seated around the same table. It felt like it wasn’t that long ago.
It is our HAPPY FAMILY TABLE. We bonded there. We shared many milestones there.
In the younger years of my children, we grazed around this table and made many happy memories there. Including memories with my own parents and family and my husband’s father and family.
Memories of my son as a young boy full of confidence and sheer joy. Bubbly, funny, ever the family joker, always the story “banker” who starts off and tries to dominate the dining table conversations and does not always succeed. Not with 4 other members who are equally bubbly, funny and loud.
Tears did come not in sadness for the wedding itself…
I do not view this wedding as a loss nor the cutting off of the “umbilical cord” that connects us to him.
For the proverb is right, and I sincerely believe it.
“I have not lost a son, but I have gained a daughter!”
So, why the tears after all?
I cried for the past that is all gone and will never ever be back again…
I cried for that chapter of our lives that is over and done with…now already written in the stars.
I cried for the silent wish that we as parents, my husband and I had done our part…
That in those times while in his growing years, when our son had wanted all the time and attention, we had given more than enough.
That in those precious moments that God had given us to raise this wonderful boy, we had given the responsibility enough justice. That we have truly raised him well in our Creator’s eyes.
That we have loved and nurtured him to become the best he can be…God fearing, honest, loving, happy…
That we have taught and inspired him well enough to also do the same for his own children.
Now, days have passed after that tearful reminiscing. Tears have dried up.
All that remains is… immense peace in my heart.
For I know as a mother, I may have not been close to perfect, but I know that I have done my best, as I know how.
As I look at the honeymoon photos of my son and my new daughter-in-law, blissful and happy, I am even more at peace and happy.
I know that God has brought them together.
Now it is their turn to build their own family to gather around their own dining table…to make many happy memories.
I just know that they will make that dining table a happy place for their own children, too.
