ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER

For many years I felt sort of liberated not to have to do the whole mother's day thing, though since my mom died I kind of avoided it and with time I started to think about it as a nuance. But the truth is that I would love to have that kind of nuance in my life. This year, on the 30th of December, it will be 18 years since my mom died. Well, losing my mom left a huge hole in my heart. The wound has healed but the space will always be there. I miss her terribly. I wish she was around so I could take her to an overcroweded, overpriced restaurant, buy her flowers, sit and talk and perhaps listen and sing all those Chabela Vargas and Elio Roca records that she loved and we grew up with. I wish I could have a fight with her or a simple short heartfelt phone call to/from her once in a while. But that is not going to happen so I will use this blog to give her some sort of a homage on this day.

She was beautiful, a bit nuts and crazy, I think excentric. Definitely ahead of her time, for god sakes, she fed us soya meat 30 years ago! did not eat carbs. Sometimes I think that she knew she was going to go early as her way of raising my sisters and I was, to say the least, "intensive". At the time I did not understand her but as I grow older I see that many of the lessons were for me to be learnt many, many years later. It is rather odd really.

She collected quirky little toys, liked to sing, was very affectionate, loving and playful, though sometimes the games not all that fun, like putting pillows over our heads or squeezing the head. She cleansed our eye balls with lemon, arggh! a bit of a nut I told you. Her standards were high and she was determined to raise strong women. She was direct and now I know that she carried a lot of sorrow in her heart. It sucks to know that I will never have those woman-to-woman conversations with her.

She loved us, she loved my dad, she loved her family particularly her youngest brother German (who died last year) and her youngest sister Lourdes, she adored both of them. She loved the waves and being buried in the sand. She loved to sew.

From her I learned the true value and meanining of friendship, she had friends that were part of her life since they were children. She had this admiration for Manguito and great love for her and all the rest of that group of remarkable women.

Mom and Manguito, her best friend. Her friends. Gorgeous her.


She used to drive us to music school 3 afternoons a week for years, she learned it too; if there was a lot of traffic and an ambulance went by, she would accelerate and drive right behind the ambulance to arrive a little early all the way to the IMAN (by the Olypmic Village - we lived in Satelite!). She treated all the maids and workers with love and respect and dignity. Once she got a perm and they curled her scalp, really! so a lot of her hair fell off and she looked liked a chicken. We started calling her "pollo". She was a tough cookie, never complained of being tired or sick, I only saw her in bed twice: after she had a mini-breakdown once I got lost in an Independance Day parade downtown and when she had a histerctomy. I wish she had cried and gotten sick, maybe then she wouldn't have died.

She sang with Mariachis in the Puerto Vallarta sea wall; got thrown out of a Garibaldi bar as she opened the bar swing doors imitating a western movie and the bouncers thought she was another "drunk gringa"; she danced flamenco at some crowded bars, she said that as long as it was love gender didn't matter; she was a chemist working at the INAH (National Institute of History and Antropology) and when she got tired of science she started a business selling artisan cheese. We ate together at the table everyday. She used to spike our breakfast shake with rum or whatever was at hand. She loved shoes and was not very good applying her make up, though whenever my parents went out on a fancy date, she always looked gorgeous. She wore heels everyday and was always really well put together. She read alot and loved to travel.

She had dignity and she had fire. She loved life. She was compassionate. She wanted us to be the best, whether we were maids or presidents. She loved us so much, of that I have no doubts. I now know that things were not rosy at all for her the last few years. She seeked refuge in religion, I wish she had done some things differently, but what consoles me is that I really feel that she did the best she could, the best she knew. As a teenager I sometimes felt that I hated her as we failed to see eye-to-eye in some issues, totally normal, but I can only imagine how a parent must feel when a child tells them that you hate them. I was fortunate enough to have the time and chance to straighten things up with her. The last two weeks of her life I was with her and we had so many wonderful conversations.

She was so sick, she was in a lot of pain. The chemo and radiations did a number on her. She lost her hair and got so thin. Her arms were bruised by the radiation. She could taste everything that she ate and the flavours were very intense for her. She knew she was dying but waited for my sister and I to go back home at the end of the school semester. We spend a really beautiful, quiet Christmas together. She was in pain but her eyes had this spark and sweetnes that to this day comforts me when I think about it. I was with her when she died. She lost her sight at the hospital. She was a bit mortified, but when the machine flat lined, she had a smile in her face. I think she went in peace and that to me is the most important thing. When I die, I want to have that look of serenity and peace on my face.

She died of a fulminant cancer at age 51. My mom left an immense hole that has become part of me, part of my life. I am so grateful that she was my Ma.

I still miss her.

So wherever you are, know that I love you, always.

Last picture with my mom. December 26, 1988