EVANESCENCE

by Gwyn Ann Aldip

Six missed calls from Mamang. Fuck. My phone was left on silent. She would always do this whenever something was urgent—or better, if she was chasing work or deadlines for school. Her name was also at the top of my list in Messenger, colored red after the unanswered calls from her end.

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I didn’t know if it was her thing, but Mamang wouldn’t miss on asking my help for her class demo during my finals season in college. I am already in my third year in UP Mindanao as a Bachelor of Arts in English (major in Creative Writing) student, yet she still does this. And this wasn’t just a couple of hours or one day thing—it required a lot more. If it was about something really important, unforgettable on her day, a hot gossip, or even just checking up on my boarding house life, Mamang would immediately call. But it would all be different when it came to work. After learning better to stop asking for help from her co-teacher friend, I pledged to provide help, free of service. As her daughter, it was the least I could do to assist Mamang, especially with the new changes required in their way of teaching. There were 

modules, lesson plans, accomplishment reports, webinars, certifications—technology that teachers had to cope up with.

I didn’t have any problems using Microsoft Powerpoint—a presentation wouldn’t take an hour to add and put together in the program. Only, we collaborated through her lesson plan up until finishing everything. It wouldn’t be an issue if I were only to make the slides, but I had to brainstorm with her throughout the entire process. I didn’t want to be selfish, but the hours and days I could’ve spent on my own papers were all diverted to something else.

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Mamang being required to submit their reports equated to the repetitive litany of complaints about how difficult teaching was, making her wish for me not to take on the same career path as she did. Before even accepting my offers of tutoring her on navigating through her laptop with the usual reports they did, Mamang would directly decline and rant about the job. She praised how the others were quick to submit days before the deadline, while she was left clueless of what she had to do. The back and forth favors she asked from co-workers pushed her to contact her daughter who was far from home. Mamang didn't know what to do with her presentation, that was her problem. Mine was not knowing what to write for my Creative Writing classes. Maybe that was one reason why I was out here cramming my submissions or how I could’ve allotted more time to help with her tasks if only I had known what to write.

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As a part of the first pair of students required to submit a short story for our first realist fiction class with Professor John Bengan, I only started until it was two days left before the deadline. Stupid as this would sound, I was left clueless of the direction I wanted to take on my work as a second year student. I started a draft using the raw voice of a young girl—there were intentional run-on sentences, altering thoughts, innocent ideas, things that went on a child’s mind. The book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Christopher Boone was my inspiration. More than two thousand words in, I changed my mind. Shoot me in the head for having the audacity to volunteer as a sacrificial lamb without even knowing what to write.

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I doubted staying more during the times when I didn’t know what to write. Was it a good decision to have stayed in the program? If I had the option to transfer schools or courses, maybe I would have. To put it better, if only I could afford to change my mind for another four years of studies, I would have traded the time and money my family invested on me. But after everything, I can’t pinpoint if I should be amused or be stupefied by the fact that Mamang had the guts to stay at her profession.

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When Mamang returned to Malandag after four years of working in Dubai, she began applying back to public schools to start teaching again. It was only then that I found out from her resume that she studied a Bachelor of Science in Hotel and Restaurant Management for two years. Funny how she only knew how to fry and cook processed foods at home. She took the road of education with the uncertainties of what she wanted to do with her life. But Mamang was fortunate enough to have the luxury to switch courses.

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During their time, being a teacher was thought of as a vocational course—seeming lesser compared to others, but it was the safest option she had. She would have been entitled to a license and a stable job in exchange for the rest of her life spent on doing what she found was hard to love. After all, it was where she got money to send me to school in the first place.

There were times when I couldn’t help but think if sending me away for a quality education was worth the resources and the efforts she did as an educator. Living at boarding houses since the seventh grade, I got used to the idea of being away from home—only being with the family on the weekends. I survived my junior high school years on a four-year science curriculum that felt twice as long. From the STEM-related course I was flowing with, I fled to Accountancy, Business, and Management. I could say that it was because of some flashy dreams or hopeful wishes, but I would be lying. One can call me ungrateful all they want, but I fled because I still didn’t know what to do. Then, I got into UP Mindanao.

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I got accepted to a degree program I only chose to satisfy my family’s desire to have a lawyer in the family. Reading the acceptance letter for my degree program was too much for the little space of my bedroom. I texted my mother who went home right away with my father and younger brother, after receiving my message. My maternal grandparents and aunt were suddenly with them in the living room right outside my door. Everyone was happy. They were going to have an Iskolar ng Bayan in the family. Not one of them may have thought the puffy eyes came from literally silently screaming—it was no tears of joy. I’ve always been indecisive but this was something for sure I didn’t want.

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I was always stuck at not knowing how or what to write, I just wanted to quit after finishing my degree. Deadlines and work submissions made me rethink my decisions. I wondered if my presence in the program was significant in any way. My head was an empty slate—devoid of ideas and thoughts that might have been present there before, or worse, may have never existed in the first place. Perhaps I wasted a thousand words for nonsensical reasons, but I had so much to say on the worst timing and little to nothing when needed.

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I wanted everything to defeat me—my deadlines, submissions, school, degree program, studies, writing, my family, my mother, and myself. I opened myself for them all to pull me down. I cried and complained in front of Mamang a thousand times. And we fought a thousand times more. I was tired, beyond exhausted even. But I knew she was, too.

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Up until half of the second semester during my third year in the university, I would still be on call with Mamang for the reports and demos. Even during the finals season of living through short naps and processed foods, I also had to deal with my mother’s weight on my shoulders. But over the years, the lengthy days turned to hours and ended up becoming nothing at all. The last finals of the academic year was mine alone. That was why it felt weird, as if something was lacking. I was kept in the dark about the load of work Mamang had until the day that I went home to stay only for two days. I stole time to celebrate my brother’s elementary school graduation.

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End of classes meant deadlines after another, not just for the students but also for the teachers. The school year for public schools was about to end, but we were still in the middle of the weeks-long finals in UP Mindanao. I was cramming my papers while Mamang did her own school reports. She asked around what to do, observed how it should be done, and completed everything without anybody touching her work.

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Mamang would tell me the additional details whenever she remembered the missing parts from her initial story. She was first to finish among her fellow Grade 1 teachers and got everything right after submitting. There was no need to call for anybody or that co-teacher friend. No daughter was dialed for rescue. And not once had I heard she called her job easy until that day.

There were signs. I should have known better. Mamang would sometimes trade rest during recess and lunch focusing on one student at a time, echoing the letters and sounds to her almost entire non-reader class. It was a daily routine, I finally figured out where the patience was coming from as a parent to my brother and I. Sitting at the back of the classroom while listening to Mamang’s broken, hoarse voice, I was a witness to why she deserved the recognition for promoting all of her students to the second grade knowing how to read and write.

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Back in front of my laptop and unfinished papers, I wondered how I survived my first three years in college. All those times spent whining and fussing over drafts and revisions, I was having fun. I started from being a nervous wreck on my first workshop with Dr. Jhoanna Lynn Cruz as a freshman student, and ended up wanting to be present at all opportunities possible to learn from the renowned writers in the campus.

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Reading through my first works made me cringe. And Prof. Bengan told us that admitting to such a thing about our own stories symbolized growth. I could never claim to be the best, but I was certain I was better than the student I was when I started in creative writing. Poetry, fiction, playwriting, nonfiction—we ventured on different genres until I met children’s literature. My years of indecision in my college program had finally ended.

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Starting at a young age, I was once into the unusual facts that filled the pages of the thick books at the top level of our bookshelf. It was there that reading the encyclopedia introduced me to Aesop and his fables. A torn page still served its purpose when the tape patched together the children's stories of “The Four Oxen and the Lion,” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” The short lengths brought me to a series of journeys. 

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I wanted to read more. I explored around and landed on the real stories behind the damsels in distress and fairytales everyone had grown to love. Unlike in the movies made by Disney, The Grimm Brothers wrote a gruesome ending for Rapunzel’s prince charming who became blind. I also didn’t know that Hansel and Gretel were two children who got abandoned by their parents because of poverty. There were also the elves who were the ones who helped the shoemakers live a better life, after making beautiful shoes for the old couple to sell. 

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The stories I had grown to love and the characters I found friends with were once again with me. I was a foreigner to all the other genres we encountered until then. I finally belonged to a squad where there were shared interests and hobbies. Classes were fun and everything involving children’s literature became therapeutic—not only because of what we can read or write, but mostly because I was having fun. I love what I’m doing. Mamang helped me by helping herself and so did I.

On their summer vacation, she deserved that trip to Kapatagan in Digos City with her co-teachers. I was informed months before their trip. She wanted to bring me with her but I could only be too shameless. One deadline after another, there was so much to unpack. After all, the time and efforts she did for their entire school year would never equate to a day of trip. I would have to come home soon after finishing the second semester of my third year in UP Mindanao. We would see each other again. And I would probably need a lot of rest and maybe a vacation of my own, too.