Last year, Dodong gave her mother a bunch of flowers as Mother’s day gift. She received it with a dry smile and a thank you. Relatives came that day last year and Dodong waited for her mother to say a word of appreciation, or a story about him. He wanted to hear ‘good words’ from his mother. Well, he thought like this because he had saved money for that special occasion. All his life he had been with his mother and had not thought of marrying and leaving her alone. All his life he dedicated to her, in servitude to her. She was the reason why he worked hard. But that day last year seemed like one of those ordinary days to his mother. The bunch of flowers was left alone on her table, unattended until the flowers and the ferns and the leaves wilted.

Then Mother’s day came again this year and they have a visitor who had not visited for a long time – her sister and her children. His sister brought three flowers for his mother. His mother’s eyes widened with glee and thanked her daughter with a bright smile for the flowers. After his sister left, “Oh, Dodong, how many years had your Ate forgotten to visit us?” his mother asked. “Four years,” he replied silently. “Four years, and it’s the first time after four years, and even before those four years, that she had given me flowers from her heart.”

“Given you flowers? How many? Three? What about the bunch of flowers I gave you last year? They did not come from the heart? How do you know if they come from the heart or not? What, are you blind, unfeeling? Have you not cared for me at all? Or noticed me and what I have been doing to you all these years? Every child of yours had left and I remained and you do not even see me!”