Art for heart’s sake: A mother’s dream

By Yolanda del Mundo

It took some time for me to begin writing this narrative. Finally, after several postponements, here is our story, my daughter’s and mine.

The 8th of August 2024 was so significant to me as it was the date especially earmarked for the wedding of two college friends whose passion for art transcends gender, norms, religion, time, and distance.

A concerned friend once asked me, what are your feelings towards your daughter getting married to another woman? At first, I was stunned and speechless. I was filled with questions like — Where did I go wrong?, Was this a mistake?, Will this relationship work?, What if it doesn’t?, or Will our families and friends support them?

I once encountered a passage written by a clinical social worker and psychodynamic therapist Linda Weber which inspired me. She said: “Because mothering is like sowing seeds, you often don’t see the fruits right away. It takes time to reap the reward. There are no guarantees, either. But if you do your best, there’s a good chance that your day to see wonderful fruit will come.”

A divorce and custody hearings

As I reminisced many years back in Manila, my children — a daughter and a son — grew up in a turbulent and chaotic family setting. It was scary, disturbing and tough. There were tedious court hearings for nullity of marriage and custody issues involved.

At their tender ages, moving from home to home was like an escapade. At a certain point, home schooling was the most convenient form, while computer games which my son so adored were scheduled around court visits for custody, legal battles and psychological assessments.

As a single parent, I worked hard shouldering the responsibility of raising my children and providing for their  needs while custody  arrangement between me and my ex was being debated in the courts.

It took the court 10 years to make a decision  for joint custody depending on the children’s preferences. They opted to stay with me. They were safely secure to live in our ancestral home in Quezon City under the care of their grandfather, my Dad, while I kept busy  with the family business to fund their education. All I wanted then was a life of harmony and peace for all of us.

However, all this came to a halt in 2010 when the U.S. visa petition from my sister which she filed when I was still single came through. Call it a blessing in disguise, but  it provided us the chance to start a new chapter in our lives in America. This development did not sit well with my daughter. With so much hesitancy, I brought both my children to the United States. My daughter just turned 18 in 2010, and my son was 21, both of them were young, independent adults with minds of their own.

Coming to the United States was ill-timed. Both my children were not done with college yet. At first, it was too costly, coming back and forth from Manila to New York and back, plus there was the issue of which relatives to stay with and in what state. All my siblings are scattered across California and Florida. We struggled to rent rooms in New York for at least two to three months until they finished school in Manila, filed re-entry permits, postponed periodical exams to maintain their legal status, expensive but absolutely necessary decisions.

Camille was able to finish her Bachelor of Arts degree in Visual Communication at UP. However she could have been one of the cum laudes had she not come to NYC during her final exams period.

While in NYC, she landed teaching jobs in Manhattan schools as an art teacher for children.

Discreetly, she and her partner, a well-established graphic designer back home and a prime mover in establishing the first risograph studio in the Philippines continued to communicate with one another, distance and time zones notwithstanding. Her partner never missed calling her regularly or sending flowers or food delivery of her favorite Filipino dishes.

Although I was aware of what was happening, not a word from me of their secret relationship.

When the time came to reveal her secret relationship, I was overwhelmed with blame and remorse wondering if I had failed raising her. She knew my marriage was a failure and, perhaps, this led her to having second thoughts about  having the opposite sex as her partner. That was my inner guilt thinking.

In October 2022, my daughter invited me to attend their participation at the Tokyo Art Bookfair and to meet her partner’s parents for the first time.

The parents of my daughter’s partner are young, younger than me by two decades. According to them, they married early. I married late. They are down-to-earth people, well regarded entrepreneurs, and supportive of our children as a couple.

After numerous delays due to legal issues, my daughter Felize Camille Tolentino and her partner Pauline Tiu or Pau, finally tied the knot on August 8, 2024 at the Federal Court Plaza in Manhattan. Amid a stormy weather that morning, the love that had been hidden for so long was sweetly and gently finding its way into our families’ hearts. We were surrounded by  the warm acceptance of our families.

I was moved when I read in one of my daughter’s Instagram posts her extreme desperation and exhaustion prior to her wedding.

She wrote:  “Our wedding day ceremony got almost cancelled by a storm. Sleepless nights, monitoring the weather, checking in with our guests, cancelled reservations and on-the-spot wedding venue changes.

“We checked and considered different locations, even cafes and museums. We had 48 hours remaining to scrap and redo everything we planned for months before we decide if we push August 8 as we intend an outdoor wedding or picnic style at Luminescence in Long Island City with family and friends. We already had the permits and reservations. We didn’t plan to have a grand one, we just wanted to share with people closest to us, our favorite hidden spot in New York and our deep love for sharing food.

“Pau and I were walking at St. Mark’s Union Square at around 11 p.m., two days before the wedding ceremony. We said to ourselves that we might have already exhausted all our efforts. We realized it’s been 11 years in the making, we have gone through five years of long distance relationship and we’re too damned tired of it already. We just want to be together in a place where our love is recognized, supported and accepted.

“We decided to screw everything, our truest friends will understand if we move everything, especially for their safety. And so we did. We invited only our immediate family, booked a place without even thinking if the food or place would be great for this memorable affair. Pau just wanted to take me there for a date before and what’s the best way to date your future wife, right?

“We wanted a place to eat with our family who would stand the changing weather with us and they definitely did. They were ready to be there rain or shine, as they did for 11 years to accept and welcome us in their hearts.

“The rain did wonders. We arrived at the place without expecting anything. We were the only people inside. The place reserved a whole room for our families to take refuge in, overlooking the garden as the rain wouldn’t stop showering. We gladly welcomed every tiny sparkle of raindrop that greeted our window and it shone like little diamonds as everyone laughed and cried while sharing their best wishes to us.

“We may not have looked our best, thanks to the weather, but it showed our truest vulnerable selves, and I think that’s the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed.”

A mother’s wish

As a mother, I find solace in the song in Cinderella, “A Wish is a Dream Your Heart Makes” reflecting on how the seeds I have once sown and the dreams I have painstakingly woven have taken time to flourish reassuring me that all my efforts will someday yield wonderful results. After all, it is art that brought Camille and Pau together, seeing in their contented, happy faces, it is love that matters the most.

Camille and Pau recently opened a Risograph Printing Studio in Sunnyside, an extension of their studio in Manila. They conduct lectures and workshops through Zoom on the art of risograph, an art technique combining digital and traditional printing that originated in Japan.  They join pop-up stores and art book fairs within the U.S. and beyond. They are so happy together, establishing alliances among art afficionados and building a name for themselves and their modest enterprise.

Yolanda del Mundo is an entrepreneur and merchandising professional handling American and international events. A graduate of Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Communication from UP Diliman, she worked as a corporate planning specialist and technical assistant, and was a researcher and writer for the Philippine government’s tourism industry for 10 years.