In his book, “The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate,” the author Gary Chapman outlined five general ways that romantic partners express and experience love. These are:
- Words of affirmation
- Acts of service
- Receiving gifts
- Quality time
- Physical touch
Based on my experience, these five languages can also apply to any kind of love, love between a parent and his/her child, love between siblings, love between friends, etc. For this post, let me zoom in on acts of service as a love language.
Since the pandemic started in March 2020, I had to move out of my condominium unit and stay with my Mom because our day and night help decided to stop working and just stay at home for fear of catching Covid19. My Mom is 86 years old and has difficulty using her hands and walking on her own. As a result, one of the things that I need to do for her every day is to help her eat and drink.When she learned that I would be helping a friend sell Tinapa for TinapaIsLife, she said that she wanted to taste our products. We were just starting then so I let her taste our first Tinapa variant – Tamban. My Mom has a well-developed palette, so I was so happy when she said that she liked our product, esp. with garlic rice, atchara, and fried egg. Her only complaint was two pieces of Tamban was not enough.
The following week, my Mom asked me if I can try another Tinapa variant. Knowing that I would be the one to prepare her meal and help her eat, I chose to let her taste our Tinapang Galunggong. Among the three Tinapa variants, this was the one with the least number of bones. It took me a shorter time to prepare her meal and again, she liked our Galunggong, in fact more than the Tamban.
If you think that this is the end of this story, you’re wrong. In a few weeks, my friend asked me to try Tinapang Kabasi. That was the first time I heard of Kabasi, so I had no idea about what I was about to experience. One day, I cooked a pack of Kabasi for breakfast. As usual, I had to prepare my Mom’s meal and help her eat before I had mine. As I was taking the bones out of the two pieces of Kabasi, I almost wanted to give up. There were too many bones, especially for someone like me, who’s about to become a senior and wears eyeglass. Anyway, I knew that my Mom was hungry, so I had to finish this seemingly herculean task.
While I was helping my Mom eat, there were times when I would still find a bone in the Tinapa flakes, so I had to carefully inspect each flake before I put it in the spoon then in her mouth. As expected, it took a while before we finished her breakfast. Need I say again that my Mom also loved the Kabasi. This made me extremely happy because I exerted lots of time and effort in taking out the bones. At this point, I looked at my Mom and told her, “You know what I realized after preparing and helping you eat Kabasi, the person who can do this for you must really love you so much. This is a genuine act of service for someone you love dearly.” My Mom just smiled back at me and said, “You’re right “anak”. Thank you.”
Who could have known that our Tinapa could help me strengthen my love for my Mom? I invite you to also try the Tinapa from TinapaIsLife and use it to express your love.