I might not have been lucky enough to be born with a picture perfect family, but I was lucky to have a super Mommy. She’s not my biological mother, but she was the one who took care of me since I was a baby until I was nine years old.

She is Teresita “Ching” J. Bonguyan, she is my biological father’s sister. When I was left with her, she was already married and had two children of her own, with another one on the way. She gave birth to another child when I was almost four years old. Even when she already had four children, she treated me, took care of me, and loved me like one of her own. She didn’t love any one of us better than the others, only differently.

She knows our strengths and weaknesses, and she would always encourage us to do the things that would make us happy. In fact, it was Mommy who encouraged me to go to culinary school even if I didn’t ask her or tell her that I wanted to do it. She saw how much I loved watching cooking shows and she suggested I attend culinary school.

She is not the kind of mother who’d tell you to do things or not to do things, but she always reminds us (cousins, say it with me) “You are the product of your choices.”

She let us do what made us happy, let us grow, and experience things on our own. But we were always secure that she and Daddy will always be there to help us out, support us, and make things better. And to always tell us “I love you.”

You know what makes her even more super? She is an accountant. And together with Daddy, they have their own accounting firm. She even has another business all her own. Even if Mommy is a working mother, she never failed to attend PTA meetings, watch our recitals, and attend the important events in our lives.

For most of those events, she had a hand in organizing or helped out in any way. She picks out our props and costumes for school events and sometimes she made our props and costumes too.

My Super Mommy is good at organizing parties and making arts and crafts for decorations and giveaways for parties. When I was a kid, she handmade most of our Christmas decorations and sew dresses for our Barbie dolls.

As a kid, I remember watching her lay out newspapers on the dining table, with her recipe on top of it and various baking tools and ingredients laid out in front of her. We all loved her chocolate cake with very fudgy chocolate icing.

She also spent countless nights tutoring all five of us. She would check on our assignments, review with us, and even made mock exams for us.

When I got sick last year, she spent nights in the hospital taking care of me. And after I was released from the hospital, she continued to take care of me.

And she continues to do most of these things with her grandchildren. Mommy reads books with them, does arts and crafts with them, and watches Dora and Barney with them. She is not just a Super Mommy, but a Super Lola, as well.

She also takes good care of her sisters and her brothers, her nieces and nephews, and other relatives. She takes extra effort in making sure each one of us is taken care of during gatherings.

We all cried when asked to talk about her and give her a message during her 60th birthday a couple of years ago. I cried when I made this video which was shown on that occasion:

Happy Birthday Mommy from Ria Jose on Vimeo.

You might wonder if she has a life outside of her family. Yes, she does. Mommy was a gracious wife to Daddy, who was in politics for almost 20 years. While she often gets invited to social events and occasions, she has a group of friends who have been with us since I was very young. And all of them would tell you she is a super friend. When one of them is sick or has a problem, they would confide in her, and she is always there for them.

Mommy spends time with community work and is part of some socio-civic groups. She is part of Red Cross and spends time with children of an orphanage which she considers her adopted extended family.

At more than sixty years old, Mommy is in super fit shape by eating healthy and living a healthy lifestyle. And she has been belly dancing for more than ten years already. Amazing, right?

Yes, she is not perfect. For one, she does not know how to carry a tune (some thing I have in common with her, HAHA!). But to me, she is everything I would like to be… a great wife and mother, a successful career woman and entrepreneur, a good friend, and a productive and contributing member of society, all the while able to take good care of herself.

She is super and she is super at a lot of things, but the one thing I really love and admire about my super Mommy, is how she loves… sincerely, whole-heartedly, unconditionally. She never fails to tell us “I love you.” And she does not just tell us, she shows us in many different ways how much she loves us.

She is who I aspire to be.

This is my entry to the Super ONE Blogger Contest. To know more about Globe’s SUPER ONE, vist the Super ONE Page.