He believes his mom acted ridiculously one afternoon and he told her so. Hours later he calls his mom and in his own subtle way, apologizes.
I recall one morning in high school. I was rushing to class and my mom asked me to make her coffee. I said I had no time and rushed out of the house. Half a kilometer later, I turned back and made her coffee. She laughed out loud. And I hated her for her way of inflicting her power over me that way.
Guilt. Mothers have a nasty way of injecting it into us, from the minute we are born till the day we die. It crosses gender lines, races or religions. Nothing is as basic as the feeling of owing your mother something.
"Even beasts are tamed by their mothers," a wise man once said. Even Mafia bosses are meek lambs, kneeling in front of the women who bore them.
It's almost Mother's day.
Nothing in my life is as complicated as my relationship with the woman who gave birth to me, who spoon-fed me, and who stayed up when I was sick.
She is also the woman who gave me away to some distant relatives when I was five and she a newly-minted widow with four kids to feed, and another one on the way. The baby in her womb died, probably due to the pressures she faced. She had no money, and had never been independent. She sold everything and probably thought the money would last until we all grew up. It lasted a couple of months. I, being introspective at a young age, learned the lesson well. It made me the most thrifty person in the family. Make that the planet, as my friends insist.
"Ubos-ubos biyaya, bukas nakatunganga," I told her when she came home loaded with groceries, my dad's motorbike gone from its usual perch under the house. She never quite forgave me for the reprimand. I was barely six.
I never really understood or forgave her for giving me away after that. Or for her meanness as a person, often expressed with the help of a broomstick or some stems she broke from some tree, or some cutting remarks that really hurt and emaciated your soul.
Years later, I had seven medals the night I finished high school. I did not allow her to pin any of it on me. She tried, showing up and even giving me a tied-up set of flowers to pin on my school uniform. I did not allow her to claim victory that night. I forced my aunts, distant relatives to do the honor.
At various points in my life she tried to exercise control. I turned to books and school and then, work. I knew I had to run away.
"Bro, why don't you, during the next overseas call, tell her you love her?" Bunny the best friend told me once. I thought it was the most harebrained idea ever to come out of a human being with a functioning brain.
I was in the middle of a series of serious, long distance arguments with my mom at the time. She wanted me to adopt one of my nieces, to ease up a brother's finances. It had the hallmarks of another "me" in the making.
"Okay, bye, Nay. I love you," I said. The world stopped and crackled on the other end of the line. Her voice softened and she choked up. "I love you, anak," she said.
She was less her mean self after that, and no longer insisted on her plan to send my single life into a major upheaval by having me responsible for another human being.
When I turned 33 I forgave her some more, and understood her deeply. That was the age she became a widow. I can't even cook adobo. How am I going to raise four kids while pregnant? Atticus Finch was right. You never really know a person until you wear his shoes and walk around in them.
We still have skirmishes. The tart-tongued monster of a mother reappears every now and then, but I laugh at it more often and seethe inwardly less.
When I hear my friends complain about the hysterics and histrionics of their respective mothers I feel I am in good company. Mothers level the playing field, in more ways than one. They all have their idiosyncracies.
They are a product of their times, and we are a product of their fears, joys, experiences and inadequacies.
I still don't understand why mothers give away five year old kids. It must have been tough on her. It was tougher on me.
Still, it is easier to accept things as they were, as they have been, and no longer look back. I have survived much.
It is easier to smile and try to weather the next slugfest, and come out of it smiling. Mothers, too, can be amusing at times.
I love you, Nay.
Unang akyat. Daig ko pa ang nasa ulap. Lalong tumibay ang paninindigan ko laban sa sigarilyo. Ilang beses kong pinag-tripan ang bundok na ito. Alis ng Manila nang madaling-araw. Manonood ng paglubog ng araw sa itaas. Baba. Uwi sa Maynila. 
Isang araw na sobrang ginaw sa itaas. Lumamig ang lata ng coke. Pero ang ganda sa itaas. Bibilib ka lalo kay Big Boss Up There kapag nakita mo ang creation niya mula sa itaas. Lalo na iyong creation niya sa trail. Iyong maliliit na bulaklak na iba-iba ang kulay. Ang sanga-sangang waterfalls. 
