My Small, Sad Filipino Funeral

Two weeks ago Elizabeth Duro, my mother’s full-time caregiver, asked to go home early, thinking that she had gotten food poisoning over the weekend. One week later while in hospital her kidney burst, and she was dead.

Yesterday my mother and I went to her funeral, held in the chapel of a funeral home in Toronto’s east end. The emotional high-point of the service occurred when one of Elizabeth’s nieces sang a traditional Filipino song that had pretty much everyone in the chapel sobbing by the end of the first verse. My mother leaned over and asked someone what the lyrics were about, and was told that they raise the question: “How can a mother forget her child?”, at which point she started weeping as well.

I’ve spent the better part of the morning trying to find the name and lyrics for this particular tune, with no success. If anyone has any info please leave a comment below. Thanks.