by Amelia M.L. Montes (ameliamontes.com)
Hoy es Día de Las Madres and mi mamá has asked me to write her obituary. On Wednesday (May 15th) she will be
90-years-old. She’s not in
hospice, not sick, still walks (with the assistance of a cane, a walker,
another person), has excellent memory, continues to make us laugh with her wit
and jokes, and she continues to enjoy a bit of brandy—especially while watching
telenovelas.
Every May, mi
mama (Emma) y step-dad (José, who will be 96 this month) spend the week with me to celebrate
their birthdays and wedding anniversary. Yes, they still travel. When I book the flight reservation, I
check the special request box that says “meet and assist.” This means that as soon as they get to
the airport, they are “met” by airline personnel and placed in wheelchairs, assisted
through the check-in process, and wheeled to the plane, off the plane,
etc.
Every year, when
they first arrive and we are all sitting in my living room, I ask them what, in
particular, they would like to do on this visit. This week’s request:
“I want you to
write our obituaries.”
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| Amelia M.L. Montes, Joseph Montes, Emma Montes |
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| Mi mamá, Emma Montes, before she left Mexico. A teen-ager in Gomez Palacio, Coahuila |
You learn a lot
about your mother when you translate things for her: details about why she, her brother and mother left Mexico; attitudes
and cultures that distinctly came from her region in Mexico (Coahuila);
descriptions of the places/houses where her family lived in Leon, Guanajuato
and Gomez Palacio, Coahuila; you learn about all kinds of family and
acquaintance scandals (divorces, familial spats, illness, domestic abuse, difficulties
of all kinds, despair, and joy); you learn about her desires for others, for
herself. All these details would
take up volumes, not the few requisite paragraphs an obituary outlines.
An obituary is
one last “notice,” one last description of facts and “highlights.” On a simplistic
level, the obituary explains: “I was born. I died. In between, here are some of
the things I did.” However, in
between “the forceps and the stone” (as singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell wrote)
is a person’s “authenticity”—the choices my mother made to create her own
“essence” and meaning in life after, according to Jean-Paul Sartre, she was
thrown into this world. I have
always thought “thrown into this world” an interesting visual. It brings to
mind Ben Okri’s Booker Prize winning novel, The Famished Road – the
character of Azaro (a kind of spirit child) who refuses to return to the
“other” world because he is the witness, the recorder of so many lives. Through
Azaro’s eyes, we also witness the choices people make, which, in turn, creates
their essence.
As I’m writing
this, I keep thinking, “ai tu”—que intellectual girl you’re being when tu mamá just told you she wants you to write an obituary. Aren’t you sad?
Pues, hell yes,
I’m more than sad. It’s a
continual grieving (shall we call it “pre-grieving”) before she even dies. I can’t stand this phase in my life
which many of my friends and loved ones have either already experienced or are
experiencing: elderly parent
caretaking, end-of-life planning, witnessing their quick or slow death,
burying them, scattering their ashes, grieving. When my
mother dies, my direct connection to Mexico—my umbilical cord from “el norte”
to “el sur” will be forever severed.
I have recorded her, filmed her, written down as much about our family
tree (el arbol familial) as possible, and still—just yesterday, she told me
something I hadn’t known, just a small detail that sent my heart racing, sent
me right to my journal to record it.
My mother
reminds me of how I felt during the writing of my dissertation. At one point while writing the last
chapter, I remember looking up, feeling very sad, and saying: “I will never know everything.” I will never know every single detail
about my mother’s life, about all the many experiences she’s had which have
contributed to why she acts a certain way, or believes a certain belief. The grieving is coming to terms with
what we will never know about our mothers, what we didn’t say, what we wished
we had said, or what we wished they’d said to us, what we wished they’d have
been for us, what we wish we could have been for them. The depth of grieving is so varied. I am trying to be satisfied
with what I know, what I have received from her, and letting go of the rest.
In seventh
grade, I was insistent in demanding answers regarding the after-life from my
teacher. My seventh grade teacher
was a brilliant philosopher and artist.
Perhaps this is why she was my very first crush. It was she who gave me Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha
and, after school, would engage me in lengthy discussions about it, while she’d
multi-task, oil painting on large canvasses. On this day, I kept at her: “But what happens after? What really happens?
Don’t give me the heaven story.”
She looked at me very seriously.
“We are all energy. And
when we die, the energy disperses. It’s all around us now.” The strong tenor of
her voice saying those words has stayed with me.
In the
meantime—before mi mamá’s energies disperse, I have a task to do for her. Perhaps writing this little post is giving me the strength to fulfill her request: "Con gusto, mamá. Andale."
On
this “Día de las Madres” I also send you a poem by Pablo Neruda (in the original and translated). It’s one of my favorite Neruda poems: “La Mamadre.”
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| "Por Las Tardes Le Gusta Bordar" by J. Michael Walker |
And I also
include in this blog, the wonderful painting by J. Michael Walker, entitled:
“Por Las Tardes Le Gusta Bordar.”
It’s a painting that reminds me of my grandmother, Juanita, who loved
working with her hands.
Felíz Dia de Las
Madres to you all!
La Mamadre
La mamadre viene
por ahí,
con zuecos de
madera,
anoche
sopló el viento
del polo,
se rompieron los
tejados,
se cayeron los
muros y los puentes,
aulló la noche
entera con sus pumas.
Y ahora,
en la mañana de
sol helado, llega
mi mamadre Doña
Trinidad
Marverde,
dulce como la
tímida frescura
del sol en las
regions tempestuosas,
lamparita
menuda y
apagándose
encendiéndose
para que todos
vean el camino.
¡Oh! Dulce mamadre
--nunca pude
decir madrastra—
ahora
mi boca tiembla
al definirte
porque apenas
abrí el
entendimiento
vi la bondad
vestida de pobre trapo oscuro,
la santidad más
útil;
la del agua y de
la harina,
y esto fuiste:
la vida te hizo pan;
y allí te
consumimos,
invierno largo a
invierno desolado
con las goteras
dentro
de la casa
y tu humildad
ubicua,
desgranando
el áspero cereal
de la pobreza
como si hubieras
ido
repartiendo
un río de
diamantes.
¡Ay¡ Mamá, ¿cómo pude
vivir
sinrecordarte
cada minuto mío?
No es
possible. Yo llevo
tu Marverde en
mi sangre,
El apellido del
pan que se repartee,
de aquellas
dulces manos
que cortaron del
saco de la harina
los calzoncillos
de mi infancia,
de la que
cocinó, planchó, lavó,
sembró, calmó la
fiebre,
y cuando todo
estuvo hecho,
y ya podia yo
sostenerme con
los pies seguros,
se fue
cumplida,
oscura,
al pequeño ataud
donde por
primera vez estuvo ociosa
bajo la dura
lluvia de Temuco.
--Pablo Neruda
(1904-1973)
The more-mother
My more-mother
comes by
In her wooden
shoes. Last night
The wind blew
from the pole, the roof tiles
broke, and walls
and bridges fell.
The pumas of
night howled all night long,
And now, in the
morning
Of icy sun, she
comes,
My more-mother,
Doña
Trinidad
Marverder,
Soft as the
tentative freshness
Of the sun in
storm country,
A frail lamp,
self-effacing,
Lighting up to
show others the way.
Dear
more-mother,
I was never able
to say stepmother!
At this moment
my mouth trembles to define you,
For hardly had I
begun to understand
Than I saw
goodness in poor dark clothes,
A practical
sanctity—
Goodness of
water and flour,
That’s what you
were. Life made you into bread,
And there we fed
on you,
Long winter to
forlorn winter
With raindrops
leaking inside the house,
And you, ever
present in your humility,
Sifting the
bitter grain-seed of poverty
As if you were
engaged in
Sharing out a
river of diamonds.
Oh, mother, how
could I not go on remembering you
In every living
minute?
Impossible. I carry your Marverde in my blood,
Surname of the
shared bread,
Of those gentle
hands
Which shaped
from a flour sack
My childhood
clothes,
Of the one who
cooked, ironed, washed,
Planted, soothed
fevers,
And when
everything was done
And I at last
was able to stand on my own sure feet,
She went off,
fulfilled, dark, off in her small coffin
Where for once
she was idle
Under the hard
rain of Temuco.
--Pablo Neruda
(1904-1973)
Translated by
Alastair Reed
