Second-generation Filipino British artist Chi Sandford explores her relationship with her mum, Barbara – who she calls Lola – in this intimate essay originally published in her blog.
Chi Sandford
I want to share with you, all, my experience of attending a beautiful workshop with my Lola (Lola in Tagalog means grandmother but, sorry to be confusing, I call my mum Lola because she is the grandmother to my two cats). It was facilitated by the amazing Ainara (IG @GoddessBuwan) and mostly had other Filipino mothers with really young children/babies attend. It was the first time I’ve ever done a workshop with my Lola, and I think it was the first time my Lola had been to a workshop as a mother – I’m sure she went to many when she was a student.
The whole experience was so incredibly foreign but deeply, deeply profound.
We were asked to draw portraits of each other, which my mum would like to add is no easy task. Neither Lola nor I are drawers by any stretch of the word – but this task had very little to do with drawing each other’s face and more to do with noticing. Re/connecting.
I really witnessed my Lola’s face for probably the first time in my adult life, and yet something felt familiar. As I started to outline the curvature of her face, I remembered all the times I held my mum’s face. Her slightly loose skin on her jaw in my hands (sorry, Mum!), which I was taking great care to draw accurately. Her face was always delicate and cold but carried her beautiful smile that brings so many people joy. Why was her face always so cold growing up?
I traced her age-lines that I realised had gotten deeper with life, and thinking back now, resemble rivers and streams. When did you get older, Mum? I find myself drawing each line with a profound sadness and grief. I’d draw a laughter line and I think of all the silly things my mum finds hilarious, and for those who have had the absolute utmost privilege of meeting her, she will always be, and continues to be, the youngest person in the room. She is youthful and knows joy like a lifelong best friend. It felt like an honour to draw each memory, forming a sort of map of her life. I acknowledge I will never get to witness her as a young teen figuring out life as she goes along, but God do I wish I had been there. I found myself missing and loving her, all whilst she was in front of me, trying to draw me as I tried to draw her.
Something about drawing her whilst she’s right in front of me moved something. Drawing the features that we share, this Filipino face, focusing on the directions of her age lines, all whilst she focuses on her own portrait of me. It gave me time, it gave us time. Time to really indulge in each other, in us as a team, and what we’ve lived through together and separately. What we’ve put each other through. What has been shared, taken, given, to and from each other; a face I’ve seen my whole life grow, change, smile, cry. She’s so soft and tender in her parenting, so giving in her love, so warm in her embrace. Drawing my Lola gave me time to thank her. Words simply cannot capture her. Nor can photos…a portrait did a little of that, but honestly, you just have to be her daughter!
This journey continued as I completed the portrait, and she fluctuated between looking both familiar and unfamiliar to me. I had a recurring thought pop up, that Lola had known me for my whole life; she carried and continued to protect me to the best that she knew how for 25 years (at that time, I’m now 26).
She also had a whole life before me. She is also a daughter, a sister. I’ve realised this more and more as the years go on, but it only really settled into my body when we went to the Philippines for the first time as a whole family in 15 years, that’s a few months after the workshop.
My mother is the youngest of 16 children. Some passed away when they were 1, 2 or 3 years old, and others lived long lives. As of right now, my Lola has only one sister who is still alive. When we went to the Philippines in April 2024, her brother was still with us. He sadly passed recently.
It was on this trip to the Philippines that I really saw, that I really felt my Lola’s different roles in life. And what really hit me was this:
In the UK and in English, my Lola is a mother, a wife, an employee.
In the Philippines and in Tagalog, my Lola is a sister, a daughter, grieving and surviving.
This language separation is important, because I don’t speak Tagalog. And so, in a way, I will never get access to the side of my Lola that is so profoundly similar in ways to me, as a daughter and sister.
My Lola seldom talks about her family who passed before I was born. I don’t even know much about my real Lola and Lolo (her parents, my grandparents), yet I keep their wedding photo in my room on my altar. I have a desire to know and a curiosity to ask but I think…I think my mum needs that privacy. I think my mum needs her space to be a daughter and a sister. I bought her a ‘Mum, Tell Me Your Story’ book for the Christmas just gone, and so if she wanted to share her stories of her life before me and my brothers, she can. The option is there. But she is private, and I can imagine there’s a lot of grief laced into many of the stories she holds. I know I’d feel it. The distance, the loss, the memories.
And so I draw her face, the map of her life, and simply accept that she’s private, as well as incredibly open. I am her daughter the way she was a daughter, she is my mother in the way she tried to be.
I’m not quite sure where this fits, but I’m reminded of a quote the founder of Filipino Mothers UK shared with me recently:
“Every child has their mother’s legacy in them”.
To hold my Lola’s legacy in me means I carry her mother’s legacy – despite not understanding or knowing it. Regardless if I can hear it or not. And so I must also carry that potential of warmth and care with my loved ones and she does. And I feel it sometimes, noticing myself and realising… this is from my mother.
There were many other tender moments I was blessed to witness from my Lola (again, it was the first time I’ve seen her in this environment, so I was caught off guard quite a bit).
This workshop was the beginning of my realisation that I really don’t know all of my Lola. I know her as mother, I know her English. But I feel her sisterhood, her daughterhood. And as someone with only brothers, I’m forever grateful.
There are so many different and complex sides to people we don’t see. I have to say, Ainara, wherever you are, thank you. Thank you for bridging my connection with my Lola.
This means a lot to me. She means a lot to me.
This article was originally published in Chismis with Chi.
About the author
Chi (she/her) is a Filipino British, London-based multidisciplinary artist, researcher and network builder. Working in a range of mediums, Chi often debates the themes of belonging, identity and home within her works. With a range of exhibitions, performances, workshop facilitation and community engagement roles under her belt, Chi is keen to bring communities together and spark honest and vulnerable conversations, bringing to the forefront collective care and decolonising shame. She blogs at Chismis with Chi.
