Happy Birthday, Iris

I knew that when I left Manila, I would miss the Precious Jewels team and the children living at Sunflower – these are people I worked with, ate with, laughed and cried with on a daily basis. What I didn’t expect was my experience this weekend – that I would so deeply miss the families that PJM works with.

When I first met these families, I felt a huge gulf between me and them – for a lot of the single mothers, my life experience simply couldn’t be more different than theirs. I don’t speak their language; they don’t speak mine; we share only a few words – thank you, good morning, how are you – in common. I understood my role with Ang Tulay as primarily supportive – taking care of babies and young children takes virtually no language skills, and is not really part of the program proper...the nursery is more designed to enable the parents and older siblings to participate, unencumbered, in Ang Tulay. This is a role I was more than happy to play; the staff of PJM are so incredibly good at their jobs that I could trust that my involvement simply allowed them to do their jobs.

This past weekend was a special one – PJM took the families up to Morong (about an hour outside the city) to a retreat center called Silungan (“shelter” in Tagalog). This is “vacacion grande” for many of these families, who live a very hand-to-mouth existence...Silungan is a beautiful place, nestled on the side of the hill in the forest, with lots of room for kids to run around and play, beautiful housing with high ceilings and automated washrooms and lots of light and breezes from the mountains.

We had sessions on Love, Trust and Forgiveness while at Silungan, and in between times of great meals with great fellowship, rest, rest and more rest, games with the kids, playing with the dogs, running around on the trails. Saturday night was Family Night – games and singing and laughing and more laughing, and then topped off with a bonfire complete with hotdogs and marshmallows (where my years of camping served me very well :).

I was sitting at dinner on Saturday night, across from 2 other cutest little girls you’d ever meet. (For their privacy’s sake, they will be J and D; they are 2 of three siblings who lost both parents and are cared for by their grandmother in the tiniest place in the community of Malabon, which I blogged about a few weeks back). They are shy children...up until this point, neither of them really knew what to do with me and seemed a little scared of me. We had tentatively played together, but their giggles were shy. But as they quietly ate their dinners, I felt a little foot touch mine under the table. When I looked over at J, she sneaked a peek at me with a conspiratorial grin, to see if I’d noticed. I squinted back at her, smiling. She did it again, smiling more, and I trapped her feet with my legs, to her surprise and eruption of giggles with her sister. Of course, this turned into a game of great fun for them (and me :) which lasted through the whole meal.

For whatever reason, this seemed to be the turning point for these two, tiny, adorable little girls...from then on, they’d hold my hand when walking, call me “Ate Nicole!” and sit with me etc...to the point where, in addition to A (who I have also been blogging about) I was never without a child attached to me somehow – “I only have 2 hands, guys!” , so one would hold onto my wrist or my shirt.


It totally became my prayer, as it had been the whole of Ang Tulay, that both they and their entire families would find some healing, some community, some happiness in Ang Tulay. It seems inescapable – when you love a child, when you connect with them, you become so attached to their entire family unit, their parent/caregiver, siblings, and everything about them.
I was telling Lorrie that I was surprised I was so emotional about leaving, that I would miss them so much and that I was surprised at the connection I had made with them, despite the vast gulfs of language and life experiences between us. She smiled and told me that I had loved their children, and so they had loved me.


On our second and final day at Silungan, at lunch time, a tray of cupcakes was brought out for the birthday of one of the mothers (I’ll call her Iris for privacy’s sake). Iris is A’s mother – they live on the streets in Manila; their livelihood is making and selling sampaguitas, garland-y things of the Filipino national flower. Their very existence seems precarious. A took to me from the start of Ang Tulay, and we had become great friends; naturally, I was really concerned for both A and Iris, as they struggled to stay safe and healthy. Iris is a petite woman with a loud laugh and multiple missing teeth; she is a little rough around the edges, a little bit brash; she is every bit a young woman (only a few years older than me) who was raised on the streets herself, and is now raising her own child in the same circumstances. She is a strong woman, an aggressive woman when need be, very much a survivor who will fight for her very existence and that of her child. Iris and I have very little way to communicate, except for smiles and her observing the way I interact with her daughter.

A plate of cupcakes was brought out and the room sang the usual rousing rendition of happy birthday. She immediately buried her face in her bandanna – I thought, at first, perhaps it was just a moment of embarrassment at the attention being given to her, as sometimes happens. But it became clearer and clearer as a few staff members gave her hugs, that she was shaking and sobbing...someone shouted, “speech!” and the room got very quiet as she choked out, through her sobs, from behind her bandanna, some shaky phrases in Tagalog. She just wept. I went over gave her a hug myself – I feel close to her, that I care for her so much because of how much I care for her daughter – and then went and asked Teacher Eve to translate what Iris had said.
Teacher Eve told me that Iris said she had never celebrated a birthday. That she had never had anyone sing ‘happy birthday’ to her. That she had never had the community or the support to acknowledge her and celebrate her this way. And that she feels very happy because now she knows that there are people who care for her and who she can celebrate with.

Iris is 27 years old. And she’s never celebrated a birthday.

Her first birthday was in a room full of people who, 8 weeks earlier, had been complete strangers.

Iris, a woman who is a fighter, a survivor, became a little girl right in front of us, celebrating her very first birthday.


This hit me like a ton of bricks. A few weeks back, we celebrated U’s 4th birthday at Ang Tulay, and it was his first experience of having a birthday celebration. I was so touched by that.

And now this – a birthday cupcake for a 27 year old who had never been sung “happy birthday”, who told one of the staffers earlier that yes, it was her birthday on Monday, and that she would celebrate by herself, on the sidewalk.


To be honest, I haven’t cried much (at all, really) on this trip. But on Sunday, after taking a group photo, I told the group that I would be returning to Canada on Monday, that I would miss them, I loved them, and that they have been a blessing to me. I almost got to the end without my voice breaking.

It still makes me want to cry – the struggle that these families have to return to after a little break at Silungan, the huge capacity for love that these single mothers have, the sheer sacrifice of the grandparents who are raising their grandchildren, and the heartbreak and anger and worry and stress that they carry with them. Ultimately, I’m glad Ang Tulay and PJM has become part of their lives...it’s a step toward healing, toward support and community. But it breaks my heart to leave them.


Happy Birthday, Iris. Mahal kita.