10/05/2026
𝑀𝑎𝑔-𝑖𝑛𝑎, 1990
𝐸𝑙𝑚𝑒𝑟 𝐵𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑎𝑛
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers whose love shapes the worlds we live in. 🌷
I am everything my mother thinks about, even before my birth.
Maybe that's why it was so easy for me to live in this world, free of nothing but thoughts for myself. My mother had done it for me the whole time. She had thought of the name I would use each day, the way I would be perceived by the world as I grew out of my stubby legs.
She had thought of how my eyes would watch the world that she lived in and how there would come the days when she wouldn't understand the stars it held anymore. She had thought about how each waking moment I am everything she has to think about because I am her world. I am her heart. I am a part of her that lives more than she could have ever lived.
It's such a selfless and interesting mindset to witness. Some mothers don't show it in visible nature; some don't even get to know it exists. But to the rest of the world, who began with the cradle of their mother and the soft hum of their name on her lips, it is a sacrifice that we will miss at first, when we could barely understand her.
This is what Elmer Borlongan’s artwork feels to me—the distance in the mother's stare, how colorful the background might be, yet in the midst of it all, above all else, a baby’s figure is seen.
You could interpret her stare in any way you want. She could be listlessly staring at nothing, deeply stuck in her thoughts, or simply having nothing in her mind whatsoever. But it is a fact that within her world—within the canvas of her mind—there is a space for the little child that cries at another's arms, but softens in hers.
Because we are everything our mother thinks about, especially after our birth.
- Mellissa Dela Paz
