Musings in Motherhood: Part III
Marc is home to me. It was difficult to say goodbye knowing it was uncertain when we would be together again. Please be safe, nothing can happen to you.
On one side, one is being a full-time parent, on the other, the other is missing our child full-time.
The fact that we come to this world all alone, and walk our journey being the only ones to feel and think with precision what our skin is holding together, is something that never ceases to give me chills. There is a vital loneliness to this experience I can’t really express fully.
Sometimes, with intermittent Wi-Fi, I hang up, frustrated. I can only share curated fragments at the correct time (considering the difference in time zones) and sometimes, there’s not even the availability, the energy, or the capacity at a long distance to communicate or have someone absorb what I feel like saying.
It frustrates me even more to know so assuredly that I do not look forward to going back. I think we both knew it. We belong together, but there’s a big chance he might have to come and get me. I miss our previous life in NY and there is something in my being and way of being that understands what feels like home to me. It is a wavelength.
The grandest questions have been circling around me lately, like satellites. They are bigger than myself, but what is true is that I have been thinking about siblings quite a bit. It is my sister that has received me with open arms in these strange days.
I went to a funeral recently. I can’t get out of my head the kiss in the forehead that one brother gave to the other.
It is surely a time to examine ourselves and our responses, and what is changing within, specifically in relation to the unknown, and to others.
Bellota means acorn in Spanish. She was a brown, somewhat clumsy and an overly sweet dog. She used to enjoy walking across the water mirror. When we had just arrived, she recently had overcome surgery but was still wearing the plastic cone. I can hear her bumping around the corners either due to a lack of calculation or the lack of care that comes with age.
One day Salva saw Chule, my dog who passed away a couple of years ago of which I was so fond of. We were in the garden when I noticed Salva was telling Chule not to take his stick. Salva never met Chule and we have barely spoken of him, if anything, not recently. I think Chule was starting to receive Bellota.
The time Bellota had a crisis, the vet recommended we put her over a blanket so we could lift her to the car. The blanket we used was blue and Salva said she was going to navigate. We all had knots in our throats. Weeks later, she collapsed while Salva and I were playing in the terrace. Her eyes had changed. It was as if she could actually see more over there, than here. My sister combed her hair, such an act of compassion, I think she felt lighter and they both understood.
We all said our goodbyes. They came to pick her up. It is so difficult to think a member of the family has left in a red car to never come back. One of my nephews didn’t know life without her as she was older than him.
In her name, along with her ashes, we will plant a tree. We are only waiting for it to get strong enough to get transplanted.
Sometimes Salva will bring her up.
My nephew built a cardboard suggestion box. Every Sunday lunch, suggestions are read out loud. The invitation to indicate, comment, propose renovates on a weekly basis. Suggestions are anonymous despite the fact that all the family members know well each other’s handwriting. This is why there is always the attempt to disguise with a “strange handwriting.” One day, one of the suggestions was a family hug, and to think Bellota was in that hug and was still with us.
Let’s hope people take in the suggestion for a massive need of empathy and an understanding of how we are all connected. Every time I feel losing north a bit, I remember the words of empowerment of the friends that have supported me, remembering me about the courage they could see and sometimes I forget.
My niece says one day to me, “since your stay will be longer maybe you should start sleeping on the other side so that you keep my mattress balanced.” I never knew unconditional love could be so perfectly understood by such a petition: to switch to the other side of the bed.
There is a tree that had not bloomed in a long time. The bulbs—that turn into string-like shapes, that turn into flowers, that turn into leaves that later fly to the ground and dry—were not seen in years until this March. Yellow ephemerality.
Text and Photography by Andrea González Maroto