The Weight Around My Neck

Photo by Paula Contreras

The round, gold angel pendant that sits on my chest has scratches and imperfections on its face; a testament to its years of wear, and the inevitable touch of time. 

Around the small cherub—a figure forever frozen mid-breath, trumpet lifted high, its song a silent message from the heavens— words remain boldly etched: SMILE! YOUR ANGEL IS WITH YOU.

My most cherished necklace catches reflections of the sunlight, and glimmers of hope that all the hard work I’ve put into the world will come back golden.

A few weeks ago, my mother looked at me and said,

“You know that was your dad’s? It was the only thing he gave you.”

I’m not quite sure if I wish she had told me. My father is a faceless entity, a man that my mom met at the University of Santo Tomas, who studied at the seminary. A man who my mom fell in love with, but a man who abandoned her, pregnant, in a predominantly Roman Catholic country. 

My mother, her two siblings and her parents left the Philippines for the U.S. just a few months before I was born, leaving behind all previous professions so that one day, I’ll be able to pursue my own. My family took care of me while my mother attended Bloomfield Community College, studying nuclear medicine. Just a few months prior, she had loved to spend hours in the Miguel de Benavides Library, the oldest in the Philippines, reading through philosophical texts.

How am I supposed to feel? Someone who I can connect no face to, who has caused more emotional turmoil than he’ll ever know, has been physically closer to my heart than I’ve ever let anyone. 

I have never wanted to meet him. But I always wished that he knew how deeply his actions affected me growing up. My anger wasn’t directed at him, but self-reproach — embittered over the circumstances I was born into, and the guilt of knowing my family sacrificed so much, turning their lives upside down for my happiness.

His image, a haunting figure who my pregnant mom chased in the airport as he was leaving her for Japan, will never know. 

It feels like he won. Despite my family, who act as if he never existed, as if there had never been a father, as if I was a miracle, born entirely on my own, my father plagued my mind as if he was at the dining table with us. His absence was pressure on my shoulders, hands squeezing tightly, thumbs digging into my back. 

Growing up, his presence cast a shadow over how I perceived my mother. She would come home late every night, juggling a full-time job and college, carrying the same anger I felt. During the weekends, she was so drained that she slept all day. Growing up, it was my grandparents’ house that I stayed at on weekends, and my grandparents who took me to school so that my mom could catch the express bus to the city. I barely saw her until I was eight, when she had my younger brother with my stepfather, lessened her hours and switched jobs from the city to a closer town. I watched her pour her love and care into my brother in a way that I couldn’t grasp. For me, it took a village. For him, all he needed was her.

Today, I am twenty — the same age my mother was when she had me. There is something particularly jarring about feeling neglected by my own mother only to finally understand that every single sacrifice and decision she made when I was a child had led up to our success today. It has been pure joy to see her finally spend money on herself — I cherish shopping sprees with my mom, watching her buy colorful Vivienne Westwood totes, the Longchamp of her dreams, and picking out Aesop hand soap scents together. Everything she has worked so relentlessly hard for has become golden. Her prosperity made me so pleased; our mother-daughter nail appointments and matching permanent gold bracelets muddled the anger I previously felt. 

While I initially interpreted our sprees as her acknowledging our past and trying to make up for everything without necessarily saying “sorry,” I now understand that it was her attempt at being present and giving me everything that she wished she could then.

I’ve lost all energy to be resentful, because at the end of the day, I just need my mom. She didn’t have anyone to fund her college or answer her late-night questions, but she does it for me. We text everyday—we send pictures of what we are eating, we discuss current events, and she tells me how long I should air fry the leftovers she sent me back to my apartment with.

This shift from resentment to sympathy has come with the understanding that my mom and I are so much of each other. My mother and I aren’t particularly affectionate. We are reliable, hardworking, and love rom coms that make your brain rot. But we shy away from conversations that we know may open up to deeper discussions on things that are just too hard to talk about. My mom was raised by her nanny, with her own mother often absent, consumed by work. The expectation that she should have a tough outer shell; one that she passed onto me. Our story reflects generations of women burdened by the fear of falling short, struggling between making ends meet and fostering a loving relationship with their children. As I grow older, and I become more focused on my goals and passions, I can’t help but feel a sense of conflicted gratitude for my mom to be by my side. 

Today, I wear my necklace not as a reminder of my biological father's absence, but as a symbol of everything my mother did for me. She worked tirelessly, in ways I can never comprehend, and every time she looked at me, this necklace—one that echoed her past—reflected the strength she carried forward. While I so desperately wish she knew how much she made me hurt, I’ve lost all energy and space in my heart for resentment. I can't imagine being put in her position. For as long as I can remember, the necklace of a father I never knew has weighed heavy on me, but the weight she carried was the responsibility of getting everything right, first try.