To others, selling vegetables and other commodities is as easy as counting your income. Yet, in the eyes of Bienvenida Bandalan, there is more to just selling goods–it has been the bread and butter, the delicious menu to living the good life.
Hailing all the way from Cebu City, Bienvenida traveled to Baybay City, Leyte when she was 15 years old in 1973, alongside her family in hopes of greener pastures. However, poverty chewed her family to bits, yet, that didn’t stop her. Right after graduating from high school, she decided to embark on selling commodities as a roaming vendor just to help her family get through the day. There, she knew “sacrifice” – a feeling that seemed to make her heart beat loudly as she walked the streets, carrying a cradle of vegetables, a sacrifice of doing anything that she can just to help her family.
To create a cradle is to have a weave; the very materials that are hard to find and create in the endless seam of tapestries that all of us are interconnected. Although it is hard, Bienvenida still seemed to know her way along the blinds, firmly holding it, hoping for the day that she’ll be able to finish it.
One day, as she visited her sister’s work at VSU, she met her husband, a student at the institution. That was the first time Bienvenida knew of love – a feeling that is different from the one she felt for her family, something that tickled her skin whenever she held his hand, a love that kept her going, that fueled a future that she was yet to experience. When they saved enough money, Bienvenida and her lover soon got married, and that marriage bore them four loving children. She chose to aid her husband by taking care of their children as she continued her job as a vendor, while her husband worked at VSU. All seemed to go in favor of Bienvenida and her ever-growing family until one simple evening in 2011 – her husband passed away in his sleep.
Grieving for the loss of someone she loved, she knew the word “longing” – an unfortunate, clinging feeling that would crawl in her skin whenever she remembers her husband for days. Yet, for the sake of her children’s future, Bienvenida had no other choice but to keep moving forward. She would look for other jobs that would still pay her to supply the needs of her children. While her children would eat delicious and fulfilling food, she would rather resort to eating “ganas”. To see the smile on her children’s faces as they continued to grow up was worthwhile to her – sacrifice and love wove her this story, holding all the grievances and the love she held, tightly knit and tight, keeping it close to her chest as she lived the years more than her husband ever did. And so, Bienvenida had no ill thoughts, nor believed that her children were investments. She is a firm believer that the role of a parent is to keep their children safe and happy as they grow up so that when the day comes when they are ready to leave their homes and start a family, they would be free and secure.
The journey of being a mother and a woman is not a “one size fits all”. Despite this, Bienvenida still carried herself, taking one step at a time. To have is to hold; the value of her children’s life was enough to keep her going. Fortunately, VSU had provided them with a stall for her to use for her business after her husband’s death. In a few months after her husband’s death in 2011, with a hopeful heart and a lucky day, Bienvenida established her vegetable stand at the VSU Market grounds. Even so, this greatly helped in her endeavor to keep her family intact and send her children to school.
A few years later, Bienvenida found out about the word, “pride” – a feeling that tapped on her shoulder as she witnessed the graduation of all of her children at the VSU stage, a pride that trembled proudly in her chest. To repay her sacrifices and bouts, her children helped their mother live her everyday life. Yet, Bienvenida still continued her business in the bustling VSU Market, a proud firmament of her endurance and perseverance, to have a role, have a pastime, and still earn without having to entirely rely on her children. Even now, Bienvenida fondly looks at new and old students who visit her stall, recounting tales of her sacrifice and beliefs that have kept her going through the years.
Sacrifice, love, longing, and pride – words that weaved her cradle. As Bienvenida carries these lessons, she looks forward to a new future.
“Dapat magtinarong ug pag-iskwela…kung mu-abot na ang panahon nga magkapamilya naka, pwede na nimo tabangan sila.” (It's important to focus on your studies...so that when the time comes when you have your own family, you will be able to support them) said Bienvenida as she heartily talked about her experiences as a mother.
Motherhood was never an easy task, but to have is to hold – and she held on, and she has it all.