Mother's Day

Malasakit (mah-lah-sah-kit)

n. A Tagalog word with no direct English translation. A Filipino cultural value of profound compassion, selfless care, and unconditional concern for others. Love not because you were asked, but because that is simply who you are.

This is for her. The one who noticed before you said a word, remembered the snacks, and understood long before anyone called it a love language that feeding people is how you take care of them.

That's a mother.

Mine learned this from hers. And hers before that. A quiet, unbroken line of women who showed up — fully, reliably, without making a fuss about it.

I grew up watching them play mahjong. My mother, my grandmothers, their friends gathered around a table that meant more than a game. The tiles clicking, the strategy, the laughter, the sharp focus of women who had seen things and kept going anyway. Mahjong, I came to understand, was never just a pastime. It was community. It was resilience dressed up as an afternoon. It was mental agility passed down like a family recipe. She has since given us a set, a gentle nudge that some things are meant to be carried forward.

She has carried so much forward, including the hard things, the ones nobody sees, with the same steadiness she brings to everything else.

I have watched her move through the world with a kind of quiet wonder. In Italy, she explored with wide eyes and an open heart, taking it all in without needing to rush any of it. And somewhere between the cobblestones and the gelato, we discovered she was not, in fact, a marinara person. Limoncello, grilled chicken, and the simple pleasure of being somewhere beautiful. The woman knows what she likes and how to enjoy it.

At the Vatican, standing in that vast and sacred space, she and my dad received a blessing for their wedding anniversary and she was, as they say, over the moon. There are moments that belong only to the people inside them, and that was hers. I was just lucky to witness it.

And then there are the Highway 1 drives. Slow, deliberate, windows down. No agenda. Just the coast doing what it does and her taking it all in, unhurried. Those drives taught me something about how to move through life: with intention, with presence, and without rushing the view.

She is a caregiver, a cheerleader, a keeper of traditions, and the most generous self-taught cook I know. My grandmothers were the same: beautiful, strong women who raised me with steady hands and open hearts. They are with me still, in the way I set a table, in the way I show up, in the way I am learning, slowly, to play mahjong.

This is for her. For them. For mothers everywhere who built something quietly magnificent and called it just life.

Happy Mother's Day.