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

Fly Free

~ 170 ~ I enjoyed the exposure to new ideas and reveled in looking at things differently through my customers’ eyes. For the first time, I felt competent and professional. I realized that I had skills not only with hair, but with people, too. Gradually, the salon became more of a home to me than the house where I lived. I was wanted and needed there, not scorned and criticized . It was a safe place for my children to visit, and it offered me a way to support them financially. And then I learned that my mother was dying. Fly Free ~ In Amá’s final days, I traveled to the San Diego area, where she lived. I sought a piece of her—something I could hold onto when she was gone. As I walked into Amá’s house, I saw no luxury, just the bare necessities: a used sofa, a wood table with its colorless chairs, and on the table only a clean handmade tablecloth, sparkling white, with embroidered red roses and bright yellow leaves. I felt anger rising as I saw how little she had to show for her years.There on a corner shelf, among the photos of all her many grandchildren, stood a little statue of a baseball player in his uniform. I asked myself, what was the purpose of this lady? She had nothing. I could count her belongings on my two hands—a couple of towels, her house robe, a few nightgowns and slippers . I searched and searched for any remnants that told me she lived here, a sense of her, a lingering smell on her rosary ~ 171 ~ beads, anything that I could find that was hers. Any hope of a familiar scent was clouded by the overpowering presence of Pine-Sol. I closed the door behind me and left for the hospital. In the waiting room, when I saw all of her children, nieces, nephews , grandkids, and friends, reality hit me like the spirit of the wind rushing by. I realized the reason why this seventythree -year-old woman had nothing in her home was that she had already given it all away to her children—these being her greatest treasures. Here we were alone in this hospital room, Amá and I. As I looked at her, I realized I blamed her for the anger I carried in me and that very soon, I would not be able to blame her any longer. I had never hugged my mother because I was afraid of getting close to her. What years I had wasted in anger, not knowing why. As I sat beside her still body and the purring machine that sustained her, I wondered silently: “Will you be able to see us up there? Can you feel our hearts and know what’s on our minds? This is my hope—that you will know my regret for not having shared these thoughts with you in life. Your life is finished and mine is left incomplete with your passing.” At her bedside, I lamented, “Amá, what a tragedy that I came so late to understanding you. No longer will you be weighed down with the sorrow of this life. They have given you a hospital room with a big window, and through it I can see that the day is bright and clear. The sun gives warmth to your cold body. Birds talk to each other, flying from tree to tree. Life goes on in its many forms. People walk, run, laugh, and cry. Some sit under the palms reading quietly. A fountain forms a small rainforest as it shrouds the surrounding greenery in mist. All this means nothing to me at this moment. I will not cry, because I won’t be able to stop.” In her hospital room, I tried to assure her she’d be remembered : “I have to believe that where you are going there is ~ 172 ~ peace and justice for everyone. We who stay behind will miss you for the rest of our lives. Your face will be in the flowers you loved so much, and when any woman holds a child by the hand, she will remind me of you. “Tomorrow we will remove the life support machine and you will be on your own. I am sorry I failed you during this lifetime. Is this the only way I am able to learn a lesson? Does it always...