Mother's Day 2013

 

 

I just realized, after posting the Broken post, today is Father's Day and I never did post my Mother's Day musings.  So, with all due respect, a belated Happy Mother's Day to all the moms and here is my post for my much-loved and very-much-missed MiaMamma.  A Father's Day post will follow eventually.  And Daddy, if you are reading this from Heaven, I hope you are having a lovely Father's Day with Elsa Maria. I had you for many, many Father's Days, now it's her turn.  I love you, I miss you and I wish you were here.  I wish you all were.  Always in my thoughts.  Forever in my heart.

 

The one thing that always got me about my Mom was the sheer joy and wonder on her face in the photos I have of her holding me as a baby.  She looked like she'd just been given the best present ever and (lucky me) that present was me.  Even when I was a snotty, snooty, roll-the-eyes almost teenager, she would hug me out of the blue and call me her "chiquitica" (little one).  She loved me, the short, round, buck-toothed, non-ballerina or math brain, tripping over her own feet freak of the family.  She did not see me as that, she saw me as someone who could conquer the world, do anything she set her mind to, talented artist.  She encouraged my painting, gave me my own wall to "create" when I was little.  She encouraged my writing, always made sure I had plenty of notebook paper, pens, journals.  She encouraged me.  She spoke her mind, without losing her cool.  A talent I wish I had inherited, although I have gotten much better at that.  She was a loyal friend, a loving daughter, wife, mother.  She was also fiercely protective of her loved ones.  She was the bravest person I have ever known.  Faced situations head-on, with the attitude of "Okay, we've been thrown this curve ball, what can we do about it?"  She tended to run into situations head-first and never shirked from the truth.  A few months before leaving us, she was sitting in the living room, having some brandy.  It had been a good day, it was Sunday, relatively pain-free and we were watching a movie.  Her sister came over, saw the brandy snifter and told her "You should not be drinking, it's not good for you!" She turned to  her and said "I've got cancer, I can drink whatever I damn well please."  She faced life head-on, the joys, the bumps, the valleys and the highs.  After her death I found a little note from her, it said "It is never too late to learn how to live."  I have kept that note in my wallet ever since.

 

One afternoon we were in the hospital, waiting for her chemo treatment, there was another patient in

there with us complaining about everything under the sun.  Mom took a notepad from one of the little tables, tore a sheet out and made a little boat, she was incredibly creative and could make the most intricate objects out of a simple piece of paper.  The patient stopped talking, looked at her and said "What is that?"  Mom told her "It's a little boat I am going to use to sail around the world, do you want to come along?"  Which made the lady laugh, she stopped complaining and pretty soon they were talking as if they had been friends forever.  She used to sneak out of the chemo treatment room, with her I.V. on wheels and go visit patients on other floors.  She would look for the oldest people, because she said they were usually the most alone.  The first few times, the nurses would call me at work, if I had not gone with her that day, or my Dad, saying they could not find her.  Then they learned where to look.  But because of safety issues, they wound up giving her a stationary I.V.  Mom was NOT happy about that.  After the chemo treatment was over, she had about an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, before the side effects kicked in.  We lived about 15 minutes away from the hospital, so after treatment she figured she had about an hour to visit her "viejitos" (little old ones) as she called them and off she would go, with my father or me keeping track of the time.  My Mom was beautiful inside and out, but she had no ego whatsoever.  When she lost her hair, it was no big deal for her.  Her thing was to take one day at a time, one hour at a time, seize joy.

 

She made the world a magical place for me.  My childhood was filled with fairies and angels, underwater gardens and amazing adventures all without leaving our home.  She encouraged imagination, laughter and independence.  One of my first memories of her is of watching her cut angels playing trumpets out of gold foil and red foil and pasting them on our dining room wall in our beach house in Cuba.  She told me the angels would play music when were asleep and the music would give us beautiful dreams.  Christmas was magical when I was a child, it was not centered around presents, it was centered around beautiful trees full of tiny twinkling lights, fairies that came out at night, elves that worked with Santa and Three Wise Men who visited our house while riding their camels.  It was about fantasy and love and the Baby Jesus.  Going to Midnight Mass and coming home, snuggling in bed and listening to stories.  Singing traditional Christmas songs.  Cleaning the house from tip to toe for the new year, making our house helpers laugh while helping them clean.  When thunderstorms rolled in, she'd tell me the angels were housecleaning, the thunder was their moving furniture around and lightning was they'd dropped a lamp and the lightbulb went off.  The rain pouring down was their throwing buckets of water on Heaven's floors getting them all nice and clean.  To this day, whenever a rainstorm rolls in I get the urge to clean.  Which works out well if I'm home.  If I'm at the office, well, let's just say my boss, bless her, has gotten used to my dumping my desk's drawers' contents on top of my desk, emptying file cabinets and going into reorganizing mode.

 

My Mom had the biggest heart of anyone I know.  She loved unconditionally and gave her love freely, no questions asked.  No matter your race, sex, whatever, she loved you "as is."  She never complained.  When diagnosed with advanced breast cancer, she never asked why.  She just asked "Well, what can we do about this."  She took joy, there was no bitterness in her.  To her dying day, she never complained, ranted or raved (I took care of the ranting and raving department for a very long time, then realized I was wasting time I could be spending with her).  She made a mean arroz con pollo and her tostones were the best.  She loved chocolate in all its forms and hoarded her king-size Snickers bars like a squirrel preparing for a long, cold winter.  Laughter came easily to her.  She loved babies, children, old people, animals, her parents, family, my father and me.  It was a blessing, an honor and a joy to have her as a Mom.  She was the truest person I knew.  She was, is and always will be, my hero.