Presence vs. Provision: A Post Implementation Assessment
A casual Mother’s Day conversation reveals a heartbreaking truth: my son barely remembers his father. But as a mother who perfected the art of being "more absent than present" to provide for my family, it leaves me facing my own deepest fear—am I remembered as a good mother, or just a tired one? (Click to read more)
G. Jo Tadeo-Marcelo
6/28/20263 min read
Over lunch on Mother’s Day, my daughter-in-law casually mentioned that she believes her husband, my eldest son, Ja, doesn’t really know—or remember—who his Dada was. Not in the way a child should remember a father. Just fragments. Blurry snapshots. One of them, unfortunately, not a happy one. It worries me, especially when I compare it to my youngest, who has very clear, vivid and fond memories of his Dada. Somewhere along the way, there are gaps—missing files—in both my sons’ memory banks. Different gaps, same heartbreak.
And that makes me wonder: what kind of a mother was I while they were growing up? What memories of me are filed away in their hearts and minds? Because if motherhood had an attendance sheet, I’d probably be marked “absent… and often late.” With the responsibility of earning for the family, I was almost always absent from school activities, frequently came home late, worked more weekends than I can count, and went on out of town work trips every month or two. You could say I perfected the art of being more absent than present.
So I ask myself—am I remembered as a good mother? Or a bad one? Or just… tired? What really makes a parent good or bad anyway? Is it being emotionally present, or being able to provide security and stability? If life forces you into an either-or situation (which it often does), which one weighs more? And who gets to decide?
I only truly understood the importance of being 'present' when I began to understand parenting through God’s commandments in the Bible. Unfortunately, this spiritual clarity arrived fashionably late. By then, my children were already grown. Now I find myself haunted by questions at 2 a.m.: Have I done enough to raise responsible, God fearing, respectable human beings? How much of who they are today is because of me… and how much is despite of me? And—hardest of all—how much is my responsibility, or worse, my fault?
I sometimes want to ask them what they really think. But I’m afraid. Afraid of opening Pandora’s box and discovering decades of unspoken frustrations and hurts. I’m not sure whether I’d survive that conversation—or whether I could take it “like a man.”
I also carry my own childhood traumas, and I worry that I may have unknowingly passed some of those on to my boys. Have I handed down my fears? My prejudices? My sharp edges? Other than my admittedly judgmental tendencies toward grammatically and phonetically challenged people (yes, that one I own), what else have I passed on? Grace, I hope. Faith, I pray. But I’m not always sure.
And finally, the question that refuses to leave me: Is it too late to be present in their lives now—when they are 29 and 25?
I am slowly learning that God does not work on the same timelines as we do. That He is not limited by missed school programs, overtime weekends, or the thousand quiet regrets we rehearse in our heads. He sees the whole story — what we gave, what we did not, and what grace continues to supply.
Perhaps presence does not always come early. Perhaps sometimes it comes deeper, humbler, and more intentional—with listening ears, softer hearts, and fewer illusions about perfection. I believe God, in His mercy and infinite wisdom, fills in the gaps we couldn’t, repairs what we didn’t even know was broken, and redeems seasons we thought were already closed.
So I hold on to hope. Not the loud, naive kind, but the steady kind that says God is still at work, in them and in me.
“The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.”
— Psalm 103:8, 13
If God can parent me with patience and love, then maybe it isn’t too late after all — to show up, to listen, to love well, and to trust that He is doing what only He can do: making all things whole, even memories with missing pieces.
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