A Little of Me in Everyone

I am your archetypal housewife ... notably well fed... queen of my home, at my most element in my kitchen! Nothing much ever takes place in my life, where the same routine happens day after day.

But since I had a miscarriage, changes started coming. Among these was the opportunity to write a column from the perspective of a homemaker!

This was totally unexpected! This honor is usually open only to certified writers, celebrated achievers, or distinguished members of society. For an unknown homemaker to contemplate joining this rank, much less actually do it, was very daunting, and believe me, it took a lot of false bravado on my part.

I took courage from the confidence given by Alex and Irma Faith Pal, and from the support and encouragement of one very special lady, Muffet Villegas Dolar. She was with me from the beginning and through her, I finally believed that I could pull this off.

Until now, I still toy with the idea of this being part of God's grand plan for me. Maybe, He wants me to do something else with my life, something more than what I am now, a simple housewife and mother...

Trying to comprehend the ways of the Lord can be mind-boggling! Try looking at it from my perspective:

"Alright, Lord, so You sent trials to get me out of my little world. You opened doors for me. Maybe You want me to do something more? Like writing a column? Sure, no problem ... but a column about wives and mothers? ... what??? I thought I was supposed to do something bigger than what I am now? And that "bigger" thingy is writing about exactly who and what I am now...? This is really confusing.”

Those were my exact sentiments when I started this column! If not for the fact that I was already on the floor when Irma and I were talking, I would have fallen off my seat when she came up with this idea! “What??? What am I going to write about?” I told her the homemaker’s world is very small … children, school, groceries, bills … what else is there?

In fact, when I told my husband that I would not be writing anymore, and before I could explain that MetroPost was going to stop circulating, he interrupted by saying, “Why? Have you ran out of topics already?”

But I soon discovered that there’s so much to write about and it’s very gratifying having friends and acquaintances come up to me, and tell me that they follow my column or that they could identify with my sentiments.

I realized that it’s probably because I’m the essential woman, wife and mother. There is a little of me in every reader out there.

When I wrote about my failure to shed my fats, women empathized because most of us share this problem! When I wrote about my social naiveté, hey, we've all had embarrassing moments, right? Or when I lamented about how I missed my husband… well, people do miss their spouses every now and then, don't they?

But more than anything else, I write about what is closest and dearest to our hearts: family, and most especially, our children. I write about our fears for their safety, or our dreams and aspirations for their future. And what mother or father could not identify with that?

Indeed, the wife and mother’s world is small, but in its smallness, it encompasses the world, for it holds at its center the reason why mankind has progressed this far – and it's those invisible bonds that hold us and our families together.