Last Tuesday, I attended the investiture of the new president of San Sebastian College-Recoletos de Cavite, Rev. Fr. Romeo Ben A. Potencio, Jr., OAR.

When I received the invitation, I actually thought about not going. I mean, I'm just a PTA officer. There would be administrators, members of the academe, clergy, dignitaries, and people whose presence made much more sense to me than mine. But then I thought, I was invited. It would be nice to witness it. And maybe, if I'm being completely truthful, there was another reason I wanted to be there, even if I didn't realize how much it would affect me until I was already sitting there.

I grew up around teachers and people in the academe, so investitures aren't entirely unfamiliar to me. I've attended a few because of my mother. Ceremonies like this, the academic regalia, the speeches, the formality of it all... these were things that belonged to the world she spent most of her life in.

And somewhere during the ceremony, I started thinking about her.

People who worked with my mother, including those who eventually went on to hold higher positions at her former university, have told me through the years that had she lived longer, she would have gone farther, too. Some have been more specific about where they thought she would have ended up. I don't really dwell on that because there is no way of knowing what would have happened. Life doesn't let us see the version that would have been.

But sitting there during an investiture, I couldn't help wondering.

Maybe that's partly why I went. Maybe, in some small and admittedly imaginary way, I wanted to see what it might have looked like had life given her enough years to get there. I know it wasn't her investiture. I know I was there to witness someone else's milestone. But grief does strange things with moments like these. Sometimes you're completely present for what is happening in front of you while simultaneously imagining someone who should have had more time.

Then Fr. Potencio spoke about his late parents.

That got me.

He spoke highly of them and of believing that, although they were no longer physically there, they were there to witness that moment with him. I understood that perhaps more than I wanted to at that particular moment. My mother has been gone for years, and yet I still think of her during the important things. The children's milestones. My own little accomplishments. The days when something happens and my first instinct is still to think about what she would have said.

Maybe that's something you never really outgrow when you lose a parent. You learn to live without them being physically present, but somehow you keep bringing them with you.

Another part of Fr. Potencio's speech stayed with me for a completely different reason. Speaking about accepting the responsibility entrusted to him, he said:

“My response was an immediate yes. Not because I thought the mission would be easy. Certainly it will not be. I said yes because it is what my sense of mission is asking for. It is with my sense of obedience that I said yes.”

Obviously, being president of a college and being president of a PTA aren't remotely on the same scale. Let's establish that before anybody thinks I've suddenly developed delusions of grandeur. But the words still felt familiar because I remember writing something similar about why I accepted the PTA presidency in the first place.

I didn't accept because I had always dreamed of becoming PTA president. Anyone who knows me knows how unlikely that sentence would be. I'm an introvert who works from home, prefers staying behind a screen, and has to budget her social battery like it's a limited resource. I said yes because of my children. They were the reason I was there, and if taking on the role meant I could help, speak when something needed to be said, or contribute something useful to the school community they belonged to, then okay. I would do it.

It hasn't always been easy. There have been days when I wondered why I ever said yes, days when I wanted nothing more than to mind my own business, and probably more conversations about toilets, water, uniforms, school calendars, facilities, and everything else under the sun than I ever imagined having in my lifetime. But there have also been moments that reminded me why I stayed.

Now I'm nearing the end of my term, and people have already started telling me I should continue. My instinct is still... we'll see. Part of me thinks I've done what I came here to do and maybe it's time for somebody else to take over. But after hearing those words about mission and obedience, I found myself thinking about it differently.

Maybe we don't always know how long we're supposed to do something. Sometimes you say yes because, at that particular point in your life, it feels like the thing being asked of you. Then when you're asked again, you figure out whether the answer is still yes. I don't know mine yet. If I'm asked and somehow I feel that I'm still supposed to be there, then maybe that's my mission for a little while longer. Who knows? I can only listen and, when the time comes, decide whether I'm being asked to obey.

On a much less profound note, there was also the matter of what I wore. Working from home has drastically reduced the number of occasions that require me to properly dress up. There was a time, back when I worked in corporate, when getting dressed for work and putting myself together was normal. These days, an outfit that requires actual thought already qualifies as an event.

So when I do get an occasion to dress up, I try. I think about the clothes, the makeup, the whole thing, because if we're going to leave the house looking respectable, we might as well commit.

Then people who knew my mother saw me and said, “Para kang Mommy mo.”

Finally.

My mother was a social butterfly in a way I don't think I will ever be. She also knew how to dress and do her makeup, and apparently did it well enough to earn the nickname “Tingting Cojuangco of RTU.” Those are rather large, fashionable shoes to fill, especially for her work-from-home daughter whose daily dress code no longer requires much effort. So yes, being told I looked like her made me ridiculously happy. I'll take that win.

Maybe that's also why the whole day stayed with me. I went there thinking I was simply attending an institutional event because I had been invited as a PTA officer. Instead, I spent part of it thinking about leadership, the strange responsibilities we sometimes agree to take on, the people who shaped us, and the people we wish could still be around to see who we've become.

There are things surrounding leadership transitions that those of us on the outside will never completely know, and I don't think I need to have an opinion on all of them. What I can do is pray for Fr. Potencio as he begins this chapter: for wisdom when decisions aren't easy, guidance when the right direction isn't obvious, humility when leadership demands listening, and strength for the responsibility he has accepted.

Perhaps that's what stayed with me most about the investiture. Behind the titles, regalia, ceremonies, and speeches is still a person saying yes to a responsibility, knowing it won't always be easy.

And somewhere in the audience was another person thinking about all the times she has said yes, too, while wishing her mother could have been sitting beside her.

Then again, maybe she was.