A Meditation on my Mother
Beautiful Mami
February is a rough month for me. It used to just be the short month with only 28 days(except for once every seven years) and the month of my favorite and only sister’s birthday and it still is but now, well now, it’s also the month leading up to my mom’s death. For the last six years February has been about remembering the last month of my mom’s life. Should I think about it? Should I avoid thinking about it? Should I talk about it? Will I make everyone uncomfortable talking about it? I miss my mom. Every day. I miss her. Every February I replay the last month of my mother’s life by reading my journal that chronicles her last days. Yes, I cry. Mostly silent tears that come down one after the other as I read and remember. I am so grateful I wrote it all down even if it is painful. I want to remember all the little details. Her last words, her last meal, her last moments, her last breath. They are crystal clear because I wrote it down. I don’t always do this and there is so much I don’t remember but when I knew my mom was dying, not just someday in the future, but with a certainty that the day was drawing near I started writing again. I wrote down the details of our last days together.
Let me back up a little not to the beginning but to a time when my mother was alive and well, when she was young, without children and had just arrived to the United States from Colombia. My gorgeous, vibrant mother came with her sister Mary. To say they were sisters is not enough. A great love, a bond, a deep sisterhood that brought them to this country together. Their story together and individually is full of love, adventure, heartache, anguish; the making of a great novel or at least telenovela. I like to think about them both as young women before marriage, children and life pulled them to different sides of this country. Even on different sides of the country I could feel their deep bond and love for each other in their weekly phone calls. My mom would talk, laugh, whisper and give advice for what felt like hours. Everything my mom didn’t say to anyone else she said to her sister.
Flash forward to the day my mom got a phone call from Colombia. Her mother was very ill. My mom had left Colombia and her mother in her early twenties. Those first days in the United States together did she regret leaving her mother? Was she scared? To me it seemed she left Colombia and never looked back but I’m not sure I ever asked her and I suspect only Mary knew how she truly felt. I remember my mom being very upset and flying to Colombia shortly after that phone call. I didn’t know my maternal grandmother and so I remember being affected by my mother’s sadness more than having any of my own. I know she loved her mother dearly. I had no idea how devastating it could be to lose your mother. I was just too young to understand but I know now. The hole it has left in my heart, a cavern. A mama sized cavern.
When I was nineteen I left my mother too. I never lived in the same house or even city with her again. Phone calls and visits. She would visit me and I would visit her. I got busy with my own family: husband, children, work, life, just as she had so many years ago. When I knew my mom was dying I came home and spent the last month of her life with her. Six years ago she was in her last days. I was sitting with her, feeding her, singing to her, cherishing however many hours or days she had left. I wanted more time with her but also knew it was time for her to let go and for me to let go. On the morning of February 28, 2015 my mother took her last breaths. I watched her take those last breaths. A part of me died with her that day. There are no words.
This is what the month of February is to me now. A month of remembering, honoring, missing, crying, even laughing as I think about my mom. Her stubbornness, her strength, her warmth, her silences, her expressive eyes, her beautiful hands, the high heels(of course), her sense of style, her distinct smell that was on all of her clothing even once she was gone. If I close my eyes I can see her clearly, I can hear her voice with the thick accent, the funny things she would say in just her own way, shaking her head in irritation or waving her hand to dismiss something or someone that she was done with, her laughter that lit up her face, the way she would get silly and joke around sometimes. All of it.
You may be wondering why I would write such a sad story but really it is not sad. Sad, not sad. My mother loved me. I loved and love my mother dearly. There are of course painful memories but so many beautiful memories and so, so much love. In class I talk about allowing feelings to rise up and not suppressing so here it is bubbling up and overflowing into my blog. The place where I share my stories. All of the sorrow mingled with joy, overflowing, celebrating my mother.
This is February, a meditation on my mother. Bowing deeply in gratitude to her, today and everyday.
