DESPITE growing up with a mom who had to work overseas to take care of our two-person family, I have been blessed with many mothers who have taken me under their wing.
There are those who are actual mothers of my friends, who seemed to talk to me more than they do with their sons and daughters. I have mothers in my friends as well, often scolding me when I become too stubborn to do anything. And there are mothers in my teachers, who have overstepped their job descriptions and nurtured me along the way - academically, emotionally, and spiritually.
I walked into her class as Justin Timberlake’s "Like I Love You" was blasting through her computer speakers. It was a cheesy choice of song–even by that year’s standards–but it was the same album I was listening too, then. That gave me high hopes for her class; that maybe I could get along with her just fine. That was until she started her lessons; she was imposing and scary all of a sudden.
She tells us that she’s kind to those who are kind to her, and strict to those who are stubborn and disrespectful. She wants us to say "clear" when she says "crystal".
She warns us that the grades that we get are the grades that we make; and that most of the time, her records are more or less factual because she gives simple tests and rules.
She said Google is our friend, and while she may be able to teach us the basics, we would have to swim through the depths of the internet if we actually want to succeed. But I relished it. I enjoyed it very much.
For the first time in quite a long time, I found something I was naturally inclined to–design. I have been trained to excel in academics for most of my young life so I grew up reading books, and then magazines.
I have always admired the art and talent of those who wrote or designed them, but it never occurred to me that I could make one. It needs no emphasizing then how amazing it felt for me to have the capability to make concrete the things I have only imagined for most of my life.
She was a wonder to me–maybe by default because she was my teacher–or also by her choice in music and taste in design. But she is wonderful simply because she lighted the path for me to get where I am now in my creative pursuits. And to some extent, she is the light that I needed then, someone I could look up to, and someone I could emulate.
Perhaps by fate or by circumstance, come third year high school, she also became our Teatro Ateneo club moderator. I was elected president at that time and I was excited to be able to work with her once again, but I was also nervous about disappointing her.
As expected, when the practices for the annual production began, she was scary again. She was kind to those who were kind to her and all that yada-yada, but this year in addition to being her student, I also became her right hand in dealing with matters pertaining to the club.
As president, more or less, I did fine. As a performer, she left me to my own devices: again, to swim in the depths of my emotions and figure out how to properly act my scenes out.
She tells me though that the most memorable thing I did for her was to get her into trouble for using her name in sneaking around during class hours or get outside of school. Or to cause her to quarrel with some other teachers. But I was young, I was bold, and I was daring enough to be spoiled under her tutelage knowing that she would always find a way out for me (and most of the time she did).
With this boldness and curiosity, I did ask her about the scripts that she wrote for our productions. It was because of this constant asking and answering that I became close to her, and she became close to me. She tells me of stories from her younger days that influenced some scenes, and then others that were born out of her reflections from her experiences. She lets me tell my stories and then she uses them as material for her scripts.
“For every artwork, there’s always piece of the artist’s soul,” she tells me. It is only through fragments of experiences that we are able to tell a compelling narrative, not only because it is relatable, but because it has heart.
She loves Batman and the color black a lot. One Valentine’s Day she jokingly said that she would wear black just to be the antithesis to the roses and love notes her students would pass around on that day.
I remember telling her that perhaps black is just how she would want to represent her love–Batman is black and dark, and yet behind his armor is an enormous compassion for his city, Gotham. And while she would wear black on that day (and I think she really did), I knew that deep inside her students would still feel a kind of love and comfort, bar the chocolates and puppy letters.
Because that is the kind of person she is, the action kind. She would rather show in action what she feels rather than tell the person what she felt. She would do anything for those that she loves, and she is fiercely loyal to those whom she cares about.
And so as I grew older, I would remind her not to involve herself too much in her student’s lives. She still is unmarried, and without kids, so she treats her students–including me–as her children. And as it often goes with relationships like this, one is bound to expect more from the other, and one could get hurt more than the other.
Many times I have let her down; many times I have disappointed her. And not just me, but all of us–her children–because we get so involved in growing up and we forget to take the time to keep her a part of our lives.
Maybe she is as stubborn as I am, or maybe she really is just getting too sentimental, but I think she never believes me when I say this: wherever we go, whoever we get to be, whatever we get to do, her lasting legacy on us would be the lessons we have learned from her. It needn’t not show in the form of thank-you notes or coffee-after-dinner dates, but our feelings of gratitude and love are always there.
Everything I now know, everything I wake up in the morning for, everything that makes me laugh or cry or excited in the stuff I create, I owe it to her. In every action that I choose to do, in everything that I choose to make, it is all because of what she showed me, what she gave me, what she nurtured in me.
What I would give to go back to those days when our days would simply begin with the words "Lights, Camera, Action!". But I knew I grew up, and perhaps we grew farther as well. It does not change though that I would be forever grateful to her–that I would be forever grateful for Teacher March. (John Kevin Espino)