On my way home the next morning, our neighbor told me they had fun in my “one of a kind” birthday for the celebrant was absent. He also said that my father who was carrying luggage and traveling bags had just arrived . I saw malice in his smile. I ran as fast as I could towards our house. I thought it was my mother with my father. I would say to her “Where were you during the last 4 years? I know you are busy, but why haven’t you sent us letters? Why weren’t you in my commencement programs or my graduation to pin my medal? Imagining that my mother had gone home the day after my birthday, I said softly to myself, “thought I spent my birthday alone in my boarding house, at least the day after, God granted me my wish.”

When I passed through the door, I saw the luggage on the floor. “These must be the bags of my mother from Malaysia.” I thought “These must be the luggage my neighbor referred to. But the dining room was empty. I went to the kitchen where I thought I heard whispered conversations. I saw my father talking to a woman holding a baby boy on her lap. Cold shivers gripped me as she turned around to look. I felt the ground opened to suck me in. She was not my mother! She was my father’s mistress and they have a baby!

Years passed and slowly but surely I learned to accept her as part of the family. Though I have considered the possibility that my mother could have been dead for years, my father’s mistress can never take the place of my only, and true birthday gift.

Lately, a shocking event came to me. I received a text “Sorry not to inform you I’m here in Surigao. I love you.” I did want to expect but I already knew where the message was from and who sent it. It was the very first message I received from my mother. Shaking, it took me hours to touch the keypad of my cell phone. I was literally trembling. I just can’t believe my eyes reading a message from my mother whom I thought was dead for 16 years.

When I regained my composure, I managed to reply, “I wish I knew that before!” I felt rage, and remorse, and grudge engulfed me all at once that day. She owed me the 16 long years living with my false hopes and all she could say was plain “sorry” and “I love you”!?

I cried the whole night and the next morning I wanted to pour out to her all the bitterness I had, so I told her “I have no idea what you are talking about! You have no right to say that!”

As wound needs time to heal, I also needed time to heal the pain she had caused me.

My mother’s birthday was on September 22. That was the day I told her “I can never accept your ‘sorry’!”