For Mama, on her (other) birthday

 

          Mama had 2 birthdays. As young children, we always celebrated it on December 12. Then when she applied for a passport when I was about 10 years old, she had to secure a copy of her birth certificate. Lo and behold, on it her birthday was January 31, 1923! How that came to be, no one could explain. My Lola said that she was sure Mama was not born on the date written on that piece of paper. How can that be when all her other legal documents bore December 12, 1922 as her date of birth? But there was no one to ask about the circumstances of her birth registration. So everyone surmised that the clerk must have made a mistake of writing the date when her birth was registered as the date of birth. That would have put the issue at rest but no, my mother could not be comforted by that explanation. She just had to make sure that we didn't miss out celebrating the day she was born.

         So, from thereon we would have two birthday celebrations every year.  I preferred going all out during the December birthday and then just giving the perfunctory greeting the following month.  But that just wouldn't do as far as she was concerned. Each birthday was to be given equal importance. Most of the time, that meant throwing two parties! One was usually for family (December) and the other for friends (January). Papa used to piss her off when he would ignore her December birthday by saying, "Di ba sa January pa ang birthday mo?" Then in January, he would explain why he had no gift for her by saying, "Wasn't your birthday last month?" Mama was never amused by this annual, overused teasing, of course!

         Today, I remembered the significance of the date but didn't do anything special to mark it. Except maybe this - the story of her other birthday!