Some relationships were distancing, before the stay-at-home order...
For many of our cultures medicine is not limited to a prescription you pick up at the neighborhood drugstore. Medicina can also be found in plants, in temazcal sweat lodges, or simply in the way we interact with each other. What is more, inaccessibility to proper medicine poses danger to all people.
The global health crisis of 2020 brought forth afflictions that have plagued some of our communities for generations, but with the usual distractions deemed unessential, we were all forced to face the issues previously deferred. If I could be honest, my biggest fear at that time was not death. It was the inability to pay for a funeral. The sad reality is not that some of us can’t afford to live, it is that some of us can’t even afford to die.
As the four children of a single mother raising us wherever rent was cheapest, our family is no stranger to housing insecurity, unemployment, food insecurity, or lack of other resources. In a sick way, we were prepared for those hardships. When California enforced the first stay-at-home order, and the ensuing panic buzzed around us, we remained abnormally calm.
What was unprecedented however, was the amount of time I would have to shelter-in-place with said mother. While others explored sourdough starters or documented heroic acts, we sat in the discomfort of our unresolved traumas and unspoken feelings. There was no prescription for daughters committed to misunderstanding their mothers.
Our home is narrow, the hue is gray, and our walls are as thin as tortillas.
“I can’t wait mi niña!” I can’t wait my little girl, my Mom gushed into her virtual meeting that was entirely too loud.
“See you soon Ady!” One of her co-workers responds with matching energy.
I am Ady’s little girl by birth, but she never calls me mi niña.
Ady’s real name is Adelaida, like her grandmother and great aunt before her. I can only guess that Ady came about as a favor for a tongue that was only capable of churning out A-duh-lay-duh. Instead of the flowing syllables of Adelaida’s childhood. I can only guess because I had never created the space to ask. It’s a shame how repressed questions can isolate us from knowing who our parents truly are.
“What was that about?” I asked, more to let out a breath than to truly understand.
“I’m going back to work!” Ady, my Mom, exclaimed with the glee and joy of a little girl.
Being her oldest I’ve experienced different versions of our Mom. Like the version that was taken away in handcuffs the Halloween of my senior year in high school. It is loathsome to admit that I felt no empathy as she defeatedly ducked into the police car. My friends, my little sister, and the entire mall parking lot to bear witness. I was 17 that regretful day. The same age she was, when I was conceived. If only we knew then, what we know now. I would have stood up for her, but I allowed misplaced anger to consume me instead.
When I was growing up, anytime our electricity was cut off, when she brought home a new boyfriend, when she became pregnant, when we had to move. Again and again. I was angry.
In retrospect, being angry with her as a consequence of larger systemic issues, is like
placing the burden of responsibility on one sole individual, with respect to a pandemic. It does not make sense. Often, many adversities are bigger than we can initially distinguish. More importantly, misplaced anger threatens wellness.
“But what will you do? The schools are still closed.” I asked the 2020 version of my Mom who is employed by a school-based health center.
“A temporary community testing site.” She beamed with hope. This would not be the first time she put herself on the line, in the name of someone else’s health.
The first weeks of the makeshift testing site transpired as expected. Some hiccups but my Mom’s sense of pride prevailed. In an empty parking lot, under tents and in the presence of foldable tables and accompanying chairs, lengthy lines formed. I will forever retain what 6 feet of distance between people looks like.
All the while, my month of Zoom University surrendered to becoming a semester. As much as I wanted to mourn the loss of a “normal” college life, my Mom’s withering spirit called my attention instead. What was normal anyway, when the simple life I knew ceased to exist?
To say that my Mom became exhausted, would be to extremely downplay the ways in which the verbal and emotional abuse from the testing site began to manifest in her. Her patients were emotional, and rightfully so. Albeit, supposing that directing anger towards someone trying to help, would somehow alleviate the strain on the world, was unsound. This song was familiar.
One summer day, when my Mom’s temporary position at the community testing site began to feel very permanent. I can’t name the month because somewhere along the way all of the days began to blur into each other. With the only distinguishing factor being which anchor led the evening news that my Mom insisted on watching religiously. After a demanding shift from working on her feet, under the scorching sun for 8 hours, wrapped in endless layers of plastic personal protective equipment, my Mom came home and stood in the doorway for longer than usual. Her now perfected routine of undressing in the living room to hastily run for the shower begged for a pause. We held each other in gaze, speechless. I don’t know what she saw, but I saw a woman who aged years in months. I saw fatigue, worry, and care carve deep shadows around her big chocolate eyes. It was unfortunate, but I recognized this weariness in her. It was the same depletion witnessed 7 years prior, 5 days shy of Christmas. That was the winter I learned the cost of funerals, when our brother Gino passed away.
As the passenger to reckless and irresponsible driving, Gino suffered a spinal cord injury. In his final months earthside, our Mom stepped in as his full-time caregiver.
Going without sleep most nights. Tending to his deep and painful bed sores - a sight no mother should see. How she experienced every parent's worst nightmare and still finds it in her heart to help the children of others, I may never know.
How I allowed anger to disease the opportunity to fully love my Mom, Ady, Adelaida, is something that I began to untangle.
That moment in the living room, I did not see my Mom, hyper-human and therefore unlicensed to make mistakes. I did not see an irresponsible Mother that ignored her parking tickets without cause. I was in the presence of another woman. A creative woman, who had to make choices like making rent or paying for parking. A loving woman, who in the case of having nothing to give, gave her daughter and her friends a ride to the mall on Halloween. A hopeful woman.
I would be lying if I said that I had never recognized her sacrifices prior, or had not done nice things for her in the past, but I was experiencing her with the limiting expectations of a daughter, and not the limitless possibilities of a woman.
The health of our relationship, or lack thereof, was not her responsibility alone.
“Can I take your dirty clothes?” Was all that I could offer her at that moment.
As her daughter, I owe her mountains of apologies. My judgment, my ignorance, my arrogance. For every new boyfriend she brought home, I wondered how many times her heart had been utterly broken. As a woman, I owe her gratitude. She is the reason I love red lipstick and know how to make a batch of chilaquiles like nobody’s business. More importantly, it is because of her that I know how to forgive, and ask for forgiveness. She is a better person than me because she never allowed the malice set on diminishing her, to kill her natural loving nature. She may be pinched at the pocket, but never of the heart. That is medicina.
Two years to the date of that first shelter-in-place order have passed. The spring and summer of 2020 feel like both a week and a decade ago. I wish I could say that the bond with my Mom became immune to discontent, but like the health of our bodies, these matters require sustenance.
“Will you go with me to pick up my graduation sash?” I invite my Mom knowing it will bring her joy.
“I’ll drive!” She eagerly offers.
Her little emerald sedan with the mismatched doors coasts down East 14th Avenue. An avenue that went from bumper-to-bumper traffic, to apocalyptic emptiness, and back to its normal disarray, in the time it took us to navigate our healing. We drive by bright fruit carts, fragrant taco trucks, the blue corner store with the mammoth speaker outside, and the businesses that did not make it. A red traffic light pause.
“Mom, when do you think our relationship started getting better?” I look into her eyes for what feels like the first time.
“When you started asking me questions.” She looks at me renewed.
Adelaida. Ady. Mom.
The light turns green.