Remedios S. Pagkatipunan

She was not rich or famous, but she was generous and warm hearted. She was just a baby girl who needed all the love and safety of a family. Because her mom passed away when she was five years old, she grew up with a sense of her own values. If you asked her about it, she would tell you it made all the difference. Although our mom never had a permanent loving home, she had the sense of being valued that changes the way she saw the world because she lived with different loving relatives.

Our mom was born on December 19th 1927; the Samijon family got more than their share of beauty, spunk and tenacity. The youngest among four lovely sisters, Victoria, Soledad and Nenita, she was definitely the loveliest and was maybe spoiled because of it. People would always want to do things for her. When their mother died, Ma being the youngest stayed with her father, Anatalio who worked as a chef. Lolo Talio remarried and they had a son Anatalio Jr. Lucky for her, Lola Francisca was a good step mother. She remembered only good things about her. She was even enterprising, she sold boiled Kamote or bananas and mom would be with her some time playing nearby in the area where later the Rizal Memorial Coliseum was built. Although she was nurtured and cared lovingly by Francisca she somehow neglected to send her to school or somehow remembered too late. So it was not until 1939, she was 12 when she started first grade. Her eldest sister, Victoria was already a teacher then and had teaching job in San Mateo. Victoria sent her to school and they lived in San Mateo with her other sister Soledad who settled there with her husband.

She studied there until 1944 and had to stop when the war broke out. Meanwhile the family of my dad, Vicente, moved from Manila to San Mateo, their hometown, when the Japanese came. As fate would have it, they lived just doorsteps away and can even see each other from the window. They met and dated as best as two people could while war was raging around them. God knows they had a great excuse when they could not make it to a date, like “I couldn’t make it yesterday I had to evacuate to the mountain” Nevertheless their romance flourished even when the war was over because guess what, after the liberation… our mom and her sisters moved to Manila who would be their neighbor but my Dad again! In short, after a 7 year engagement they got married in June 17, 1951 at Our Lady of Loretto in Sampaloc.

Their marriage was blessed with 6 children, 3 girls and 3 boys. Victoria, Venilda, Vicente Jr., Vergilio, Vilma and Verden. For a while they lived with Dad’s parents in Sampaloc, where the 3 older kids were born then rented a house in Quezon City where Vergilio was born then finally settled in Pasig where the youngest 2 were born. Although our Dad used to work for the government and money was often tight, mom with her frugality was able to save enough to buy our family a house and lot. She was a stay-at-home mom, (as was usual during that time) and besides our dad’s work took him months on end in different places, as far away as Mindanao. Later, however he requested for assignments closer to home, like Bulacan and even Pasig.

As a homemaker and disciplinarian she was formidable and expected the highest level of cleanliness (sterility if that is possible) in the home. Although she was not one to forbid activities which take us away from home, be they school related or not, she almost always allowed us to go with our friends to outings, movies, parties as long as we did our chores first. She said “since I cannot take my kids to these places why refuse to let them go when other people would take them?” She also made sure we went to the best school that they could afford. We went to good Catholic Schools run by priests and nuns.

After all of us kids have finished studying and 2 have gotten married and my dad had retired, my mom immigrated to America at the age 55. Venilda came to America previously and they stayed together in San Diego. Our mom adjusted splendidly babysitting and managing household and even doing alterations for friends and neighbors being handy with a sewing machine. Tragedy struck, though when in 1984, my brother, Verden suffered a respiratory arrest secondary to asthma and died. He was less than 2 months short of his 21st birthday. My mom was devastated. She and Venilda went home to the Philippines and after the funeral she opted to move on and return in America. After 3 years our dad joined her and later our brother Vergilio also immigrated.

Our parents enjoyed tremendously their visits to the Philippines each and every year since all the grandchildren 11 of them and 4 great grandkids live there.

In 2008, tragedy again stuck when our dad died. Though grief-striken our mom took it all in stride and even continued living by herself in the home they both shared for many years. She was not one to mope and cry and indulge in self-pity. Less than a year after dad's death though, she was diagnosed with biliary duct cancer. She got treatments and procedures and she fought a good fight...still she enjoyed a full social life with her friends, visiting relatives and her eldest sister, the last remaining who sadly passed away the next year. She also went to visit her children and grandchildren in the Philippines twice. She would have gone back right about this time and was waiting for her oncologist to give her the go signal who was hoping along with us that treatment is still possible but instead her condition deteriorated quickly and she passed within a day after she was taken to the hospital.

Arrangements under the direction of Glen Abbey Mortuary, Bonita, CA.