Stew for Your Soul

MBH and I survived two family trips, the first, to the Midwest iced in Canadian blasts, the other, a week on the coast, sun kissed with spring blossoms. On the second trip MBH overcame illness with Vicks liquid gel caps. Then I succumbed to an upper bronchial flu. We prayed and read our electronic Bibles.

I needed God and Mommy care.

I’d been with my mom at Tastebuds, a Filipino restaurant she liked. Oh, the size of two, crispy skin pig legs! Tastebuds' single bowl of steamed rice could satiate a Catholic family. Mom ordered Tinola for us, soupy stew with chicken pieces, Bok Choy, squash,  patis*, garlic, onions, and ginger. Sip after sip sparked memories of Mom’s nourishing cooking from scratch.

Mommy would add rice into this soupy delight, maybe not so much greens.

As we waited for the check Mom displayed her leather and fabric tote bag. “See. I bought this when I visited Spain in ...what year was that?” She peered at gold-embossed digits on the purse’s tag. “Oh, 1948! See . . . your mom takes good care of things.”

Mom took good care of her family as well. She nursed Dad’s injuries after a severe accident. Whenever we kids fell sick, she would sponge away the heat, massage Vicks ointment on congested areas, then feed us her version of Tinola.

I shared how Mom trained to be a nurse at Manila’s St. Luke’s Nursing School and Hospital in the early 1940s. At the time the United States undertook measured steps to release it’s territorial governance of the Philippines to its peoples. December 1941 Imperial Japan forces violently wrested American control from the 7,000 islands’ nation with imperial vows to quickly free the Philippines from the US. Instead they settled as occupiers centered in Manila.

As St. Luke’s staff rushed to the battlefront to serve, Mom and fellow students took on their duties, trained by medical occupiers to nurse according to Japanese customs- Kanji brush script, Japanese dialect, proper bowing angle to superiors. Recently Mom revealed she performed Japanese folk dances to entertain the doctors.

When Gen. Douglas MacArthur returned in 1944, Manila nights became fiery bright from air bombings. A white sheet painted with a large red cross protected the hospital from destruction. It protected mom and her teen friends as each served too many sick and dying while on a daily ration of pork fat/rice, bananas, and one bottle of water gathered from a well two miles away.

70 years later, such WWII memories vividly spill from her lips. But she’ll ask me repeatedly, “So . . . how’s (Miguel, my Maria, Buddy)?”

Her grandkids, my kids, are fine in Jesus.

In sickness and now health her daughter too, is fine… in Jesus.

My mom is fine in Jesus though she may not retain what we tell her or present to her (my sister gave her the purse).  By God’s provision, a painted red cross, Mom thrives nearly seventy years past V-J Day, WWII! She became a registered nurse, a wife, caring mother, and grandma, ever in Jesus.

Lent begins this week. Accept the cross, its life saving forgiveness.
Daily meditate on Bible verses, God's stew for the soul.
Just think how you will become--- in Jesus.

*Fish sauce for Pinoys. Thais call it "nampla."