YOHANNAN

By DF Dale E. Mangubat

In a tiny town in Misamis Oriental lives Gracia A. Yamit — mother, utility worker, a living victim and a warrior herself.

She never wanted more than she deserved, but life handed her a mountain—and somehow, she made it to the top with four children hanging around her neck, her faith gripped close in both fists, her love enough to fill up so many tired lungs.

Her path to single motherhood wasn’t the result of choice but of abandonment.

She was three months pregnant with her youngest when her husband left.

From that point forward, she shouldered everything — birth, heartbreak, responsibility — on her own. ““I was completely on my own,” she said softly. No courtroom. No confrontation. Just silence. Next came the fight for survival.

Raising four children on an income that barely scratched minimum wage was a battle Gracia fought daily.

She worked as a barangay utility worker by day, a mother by night, and a woman trying not to fall apart somewhere in between.

The hardest part, she said, wasn’t the physical exhaustion—it was finding ways to make the little she had stretch far enough.

“The hardest part was really earning money to support them—especially for their schooling,” she said. Her voice didn’t crack when she said it. It was too practiced, too used to holding things together.

And yet, what little she had, she gave.

There were nights with no food, only water boiled with salt—or when lucky, brown sugar.

“I would boil water with just salt in a pot and sometimes add a little brown sugar. That’s what I fed my babies because there was simply nothing else,” she shared, her words steady but heavy.

It wasn’t said to shock. It was said because it was their reality, and it had to be said.

Still, she never stopped showing up. She borrowed small amounts from friends when she had to.

A close friend—and Auntie Belen would sometimes give her 500 pesos. Just enough for milk. Just enough to make it through another week.

“Every payday, they’d help me. Even if it was just a few hundred pesos, it meant everything,” she said.

These small acts of kindness, to her, were lifelines—tied not to money, but to mercy.

And in her hardest moments, when even kindness seemed far, she turned to prayer.

“Yes, I cried everything out. I just brought everything to the Lord in prayer,” she said. “Ako na lang gyud tanan.” (“It was all on me.”)

Still, her children never asked for more than she could give. They learned to be content, even when the only thing on the table was love.

“They never really complained, as long as they had something to eat,” she recalled. “Back then, five pesos was already a big deal to them. Even with just one peso left, they were still content.”

Her children’s acceptance became her strength. Their smiles made the boiled water taste like a feast. Their laughter turned a dark home into a warm one.

And their dreams—those dreams she fueled with every peso, every prayer, every painful choice—are now coming true.

Three out of her four children have graduated.

“Despite all the hardship, all of them graduated,” she said, smiling with a mix of pride and relief.

Her children finishing school is not just their own achievement, but behind their success is a hopeful mother clinging to prayers to get through everything they’ve been through. 

Gracia didn’t do this with a roadmap. She had no guide, no partner, and no savings.

Just grit. And God. And love that could outlast storms.

“I would accuse myself, saying to myself that I was useless, that I was all alone. Yes, I cried everything out. I just brought everything to the Lord in prayer.”

Her advice to other single mothers comes from a place of quiet, lived truth.

“They really have to work hard. Truly give their best,” she said. “Even if you’re alone, you can still give your children a future. But they also have to do their part. If they won’t help themselves, there’s only so much you can do.”

She does not talk like a hero. She is a mother who spoke like one did what she had to do.

Practicality. Reality. As a woman who refused to quit even when the world had given up on her. She doesn’t want recognition. But she deserves it.

Gracia never slacked off. She took on the burden of a family, sometimes on an empty stomach and with tired feet. But what she forged — through sacrifice, humility and ’round-the-world faith — was a legacy that meant more than any inheritance.

Her children now inherit that legacy, not as a weight, but as a badge of honor.

Because sometimes, the strongest women are not the ones in headlines. They’re the ones who boil water and call it dinner.

The ones who pray on the floor while their children sleep. The ones who walk to work with sore knees but full hearts.

Gracia is that woman.

And though she may have walked her journey alone, she has raised four souls who now walk with her—lifting her, honoring her, and finally, helping her rest. 

And maybe, that’s what motherhood really is—not the absence of hardship, but the refusal to let it win.

Not perfection, but persistence. Not abundance, but sacrifice. And above all, a love that holds everything together, even when everything else falls apart.

Because even in the smallest hands, wrapped around a spoon of sugared water or holding a diploma years later, her legacy lives on. And that legacy is this: what she had, she gave. And in giving it, she changed everything.