Amá, Your Story Is Mine: Walking Out of the Shadows of Abuse

Preface

~ ix ~ preface ~ I sit next to my dying mother and I see her old, tired, soft face free of suffering and pain. I have so many thoughts and none of them makes sense. I am confused. I see my mother enjoying peace for the first time and I am not able to share that peace with her. I ask myself, “Will Amá really be happy now?” We are all near her bedside in the hospital. One of my sisters is lying by Amá’s side. Another one is throwing herself across Amá’s body. The third is wailing and sobbing. My brother is stroking her hand. The demons of the past, like bats in a cave, have sat dormant in me for years, waiting to escape. But there I am, full of anger and bitterness, and, at the same time, numb. I wonder, “Am I so selfish and unforgiving that I can’t feel the emotions my brother and sisters display?” Why is it so hard for me to understand my mother, when she was so clear about who she was? Maybe it’s because Amá talked in riddles. Many times I did not understand her. I spent most of my growing years mad at her and wanting her to change to fit in with the rest of the world. I thought of Amá as stubborn and narrow-minded. As we were growing up, my ~ x ~ sisters and I tried to get her to change her way of dressing— always in conservative colors of navy blue, black, gray, and white, and always covering her soft and wavy hair. Her answer never varied: “You think that my clothes are going to change who I am inside?”When we wanted her to come and visit our friends’ mothers, she would say, “Why do people need to know other peoples’ lives?” And looking back, I wonder if she was really saying, “I don’t want them to know our business.” There was so much to hide. . . . This is her story and, as it turns out, my own. ...