Strengthen Families

To Our Grandmother: Part Parent, Teacher, Best Friend and Angel

Dr. Nona Ricafort
May 10, 2021
To Our Grandmother: Part Parent, Teacher, Best Friend and Angel

Happy Mother's Day!

There is so much to say about Mothers.

Poet and writer Kahil Gibran described “Mother” as the most beautiful word to be uttered on the lips of Mankind.

To the world, we are considered Mothers, but to our family, we are the world because there are no roles in life that is more essential than that of a mother. A Mother's love is the strongest energy known to men because it connotes peace.

When you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know. The influences of mothers in the lives of their children are beyond calculation. Princess Diana described the mother’s arms as more comforting than anyone else’s.

To Our Grandmother: Part Parent, Teacher, Best Friend and Angel

My mother just passed away on March 28, 2021 at the age of 101. To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Her influence on us, her family, has been so powerful that the traditions and cultures set before us will stay throughout, now to its third generation.

Being the eldest in a family of 6 siblings, I was the closest to my parents, working throughout for seven decades in all the family businesses and during their twilight years, assisting in all their needs and eventually making decisions for them to the very end. Amazingly, our only daughter witnessing how I have served my family, carried on my role, assisting my Mom (her grandmother) in all her needs for the last past 3 years up to her last breath.

To Our Grandmother: Part Parent, Teacher, Best Friend and Angel

The harmony inculcated to us by our parents live on. My siblings and I accepted this tradition, and with God's Grace, we will live as a family together peacefully. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "Youth fades, love droops, the leaves of friendship fall, another's secret hope outlives them all." Indeed, parents can look through their children's eyes and see their tomorrow. Yes, our parent's life's vision of equality and peace among us, the 6 siblings were forecasted and fulfilled.

Remember, life doesn't come with a manual for mothers, but it comes with a grandmother who has set the ideal scenario in life. Grandmother is a little bit parent, a little bit teacher & mentor and a little bit best friend; and of course, a bit of an angel on earth. Grandmother has demonstrated the art of mothering in teaching the art of living to their children.

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