Mommy.
Those who've known me or my brother and had the privilege of being welcomed into our humble abode have all, at one time, wrongly identified who our mother was. It would come as a complete shock to everyone that the short, skinny, brown-haired woman they saw inside our home is not our older sister, but actually the woman from whose bosom we were brought into life. More often, people would point to somebody else when they ask me or my brother, “Siya ba nanay mo?” One of the usual suspects was this stout, sharp-tongued blonde who always seemed to be preoccupied with something – a book, her phone, the laundry, a television show she was watching, or her garden. No, that woman is not my mother. She is my grandmother, Solema Pilar. She is known to plenty of people as Emma, Kims, Ate or Ma'am. But I knew her by a different name... I knew her as Mommy. You see, we have weird naming conventions in our household. “Mama” and “Papa” are obviously my paren...
