My mom’s favorite questions (most asked):
Before:
1. How can the picture come out on the TV? I don’t understand it!
2. How can the video of my son/daughter come out on the cellphone? I don’t understand it!
3. How can you find the words of my favorite song in your computer so quickly? I don’t know how you do it!
4. Who are those actors on TV? I don’t know who they are!
5. What is the name of the woman who just kissed me? I don’t know!
Nowadays:
1. What are you doing?
2. Where are we going to eat tonight/ later?
3. Where is the baby? (This is my brother’s baby who is home for the holidays.)
4. Where are the people in the house?
5. What are we doing later?
These are questions that, if you don’t answer right away, she will call your attention until you do.
And then there are the questions she asks out of the blue, which she chooses to ask whenever we (other people) are in the middle of a serious discussion:
1. Is Mila still alive? (Mila is my uncle’s widow, who chose to return to the house she and my uncle lived in for most of their married life, even though she would be by herself.)
2. We are here in Bukidnon because of Papa, right? (My dad was hired by one of the largest multimedia agricultural corporations in Mindanao back in 1960.)
3. Where is Edgar? (Followed closely by) Where is Edgar’s mama? (My mother-in-law is in the hospital under critical care, because she isn’t eating.)
4. Are my children okay? (Here I think she tries to make the effort to remember at least her children’s names.)
5. What is going on in the world? (But she doesn’t watch the news because she doesn’t recognize the people so.. )
I have learned to give her simple answers that are easy to remember (for me), so that when she asks the same question two minutes later, I can answer immediately. I have learned that she cannot internalise long, complicated answers anyway.
Life in the Bukids 