SOMEWHERE in between my mother lost clarity about who she really was and what she once wanted to be, although there were a few times I would see little glimpses of these. One of the fondest memories I have of my mother is of a time, when I was around five, and I was watching her, the early morning light streaming behind her back from the windows, as she sat cross-legged on the bed, at age 39, cutting and pasting photos, making a scrapbook of pictures of places she would never see and things she would never have. I was then the youngest and my older siblings were in school; with both of us left in relative peace at home, that was surely one of the few peaceful times that my mother ever had, and her love of fine things and a finer life shone through.

	Imelda Cajipe-Endaya/Hiraya Gallery

"The Sound of Music" was, after all, my mother's favorite musical, which she made us children watch together with all the others. And while both our parents had chosen to teach us English — and the love for reading bequeathed by my father who was a smart and well-read man (when not drunk) — it was my mother who handed down to all of us children a taste for the arts.

She used to dance, too. Among her prized possessions — which went up in smoke when the house eventually burned down last year — was a clipping, lovingly covered with plastic, of her as a cover girl of Women's Magazine, circa 1954 or 1955. I don't remember the exact date. But I do remember that in the photo she was wearing a black sequined sleeveless satin top (daring for her time), a white tutu that correctly, for that era, reached well to her knees, and toe shoes! Of course the photograph was in sepia, so I can't be sure of the colors, but the image still shines through my memory as everything that my mother once was: full of hope and promise.

For a long time, broken dreams were what I believed to be the only heritage of my family, not for lack of intelligence or talent, or even artistic sensitivity or sensibilities, which are among the things children raised in such a house of extremes are sure to develop. Big dreams are what my five sisters and I all had: three wanted to be performers, one went so far as to gain a bit of local renown as a folk singer, only to end up in one bad relationship after the other; another got to log a few hours as the pilot she had dreamed she would be (despite the odds). Now most of my sisters are in their 40s and none of them is any less courageous for choosing to give up their dreams to become steadfast and caring mothers, some of them surviving through their own separate difficult circumstances. But I often think that what my mother and sisters lacked was the inner and outer resources to make their dreams come true.

And I cannot but point an accusing finger to society, because society contributed to these shattered dreams: By not giving my mother the safe space to run away to. Or, by judging one of my sisters for separating from her husband, thus pushing her to jump into the very first relationship that would legitimize her situation. Or, by not nurturing the gifts of those who did not quite fit the norm, especially because they were women.

Even today, as I struggle to raise my daughter on my own, I am forced to confront society's lack of accommodation, and sometimes even ire.

There are days that are really a challenge, as I try to stretch the budget, my patience, my stamina to near-breaking points. Often, the physical demands alone are tremendous, especially in cases so Western like mine where one does not have a supportive extended family to fall back on, but without the first-world amenities like tax breaks and daycare systems put in place specifically for single moms. On top of all, I still get a lot of raised eyebrows, sudden silences, somewhat incredulous queries, comments (many well-meaning but biased) from teachers or others who believe a child raised without a father automatically lacks love and will surely grow up crooked, and often harassment from men. Sometimes my being a single mother is even used by the mean-minded as an issue to score below the belt in conflicts that have absolutely nothing to do with my life choices. But the worst my young daughter and I have had to face each day is the sheer vulnerability, the constant, lingering threat of violence against two females who have only each other to count on.

Yet time has passed by me as well, just as it has my mother. For me, time does heal, and I have come to believe that it is by no coincidence that I carry with me, always, the mistaken honor of being named after my mother's dream. My name is Danilova — after Alexandra Danilova, the Russian ballerina — and I was named really as an afterthought, as my mother started running out of female names beginning with the letter D (Daphne, Dawn, Donatela, Dominique, Denise).

In turn, I named my daughter Isis, also instinctively, also as an afterthought, as throughout pregnancy, I had thought I was going to have a son, being unable to acquire an ultrasound to determine the sex of the hyperactive fetus. Isis is the Egyptian goddess who brought her brother Osiris back to life.