Thank you for joining me to celebrate the life and legacy of my mom, Tessie Davis, also known to her family and friends as Tina or Ditse, and to her grandkids as Lola. We are so thankful that we were able to be with her as she took her last breath, especially with COVID protocols in place. 2020 has been a year that none of us will ever forget.

She was born in the Philippines where she met and married my dad and gave birth to me. We then left the Philippines and came to the United States. I can’t imagine how terrifying that must have been to leave her family at the age of 19 and begin a new life in a new country, let alone with a toddler and another baby on the way. They arrived in Texas where my dad introduced her to his family, the Davises. Although the Davises weren’t her family by blood, they loved her as if she was one of their own and continued to do so for the next 50 years. She was, and always will be, a part of the Davis family.

She worked hard in this new country that became her home. I have to remind myself at times that she was an immigrant. She became a U.S. citizen about three years after moving here. I asked her why she didn’t teach me Tagalog, her first language, and she said she was too busy learning how to speak English. Well, she definitely mastered it. Her English and grammar were better than many of the citizens born here. I had a friend in high school that called the house and Mom answered the phone. My friend thought she had the wrong number because Mom didn’t have an accent like her mother did, who was also from the Philippines. We girls would sometimes tease her on how overly articulate she was, annunciated every syllable, and moved her lips in a peculiar way when she spoke that made us giggle. She would laugh about it, too.

Mom’s way of showing love was through her actions. She wasn’t overly affectionate or verbally expressive in her love for us girls. Her way of showing love was making sure we were taken care of by providing food, shelter, and clothes. She worked outside of the home for as long as I can remember while raising us. There were times when we would have a school performance or extra-curricular activity of some kind and she wouldn’t be there. It wasn’t until after I became an adult that I realized it was because she was working and didn’t have a job where she could easily take off. I appreciate that so much more now since becoming a mother as there have been times when I missed my kids’ functions because of work.

I remember when she received her bachelor’s degree. I wish I would have told her how incredibly proud I was of her. It took a lot of hard work and determination to achieve that, especially as an immigrant, while still working and being a mother. She went on to become a Nursing Home Administrator. I would listen to her tell stories about the residents. She really did care for them. She was good at what she did, and she loved what she did.

She would spend hours at the gym or at home on a treadmill, bicycle, or elliptical machine. She put me to shame! I was younger and in better health (back in the day) and wouldn’t be able to spend half that amount of time exercising (nor would I want to, truth be told!). She had closets full of shoes, clothes, and jewelry and seldom wore the same outfit twice to work. And she loved to sing. Like most Filipinos she had a karaoke machine (is that a stereotype?) and would sing for hours. Sometimes we would even join her.

She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease around 2005. Over the last several years, she began to lose weight, the tremors got worse, and her quality of life declined. She did the best she could to manage with medication, but it wasn’t enough. She always tried to stay active though. I remember seeing her walking up and down the hallway, carrying her walker. I asked her, “What are you doing?!” She said that was her form of exercise. She would have a burst of energy the hour after taking her meds, so she used that time to get in a workout! She couldn’t sleep for more than four hours at a time or else she would be so sore and stiff that it would be hard to move the rest of the day. She lived this way for years. She had finally gotten to a point where she asked God to either heal her completely or to call her home. She suffered a massive stroke on November 27, 2020, and on December 14, 2020, God called her home.

Today would have been her 70^th birthday. The last picture we have of all of us girls and her grandkids was from her birthday last year. I never would have thought looking at that picture that she wouldn’t be here for this one. While I miss her, I take comfort in knowing she is celebrating her birthday in heaven, free from pain and suffering.