Written in honor of my late mother, who passed away on March 4, 2024.
My first memory of this life plays in my mind like an old movie reel, the analog kind we’d watch in grade school, projected on the wall in a dark room. Scratchy and muted. I am a baby. Mamá is holding me on the shores of las playas de Tijuana as we watch the water approach, then retreat. I am terrified and mesmerized by its enormity, but I know I am safe because I am in mamá’s arms.
When I was older, Mamá would walk me to kindergarten. I’d wrap my arms around her waist, content to feel her body sway back and forth with each step. She would drop me off, and I would cry inconsolably until my teacher, exasperated, would call mamá and ask her to return so that I would settle down.
Mamá never complained. She would walk back and join me in the classroom. With mamá nearby, I felt safe enough to focus on fingerpainting and my ABCs. Mamá spent so much time in my class that year, she received an award from the school for her “volunteer” service. That award hung on her bedroom wall until the day she died. She was proud of it. She said it was the only award she’d ever received, and I now wish I had given her awards every day.
Mamá loved generously. She loved her family with tender ferocity.
Mamá showed her love through food. Simple dishes rich with comino, oregano, ajo, tomate, cebolla, flavor profiles I attempt to replicate, and which elude me no matter how I try. Warm tortillas de harina made by hand. Fresh menudo on Sunday mornings. Funny-shaped birthday cakes, made in random tins, whatever she had available. Mounds of tamales on Christmas Eve, homemade buñuelos on New Year’s Day. Frijoles for days, weeks, a lifetime of beans. Even the dreaded liver and onions. Everything was made with love.
It was through food that mamá said, “I love you.”
Mamá was small, maybe five feet tall, but she was the strongest person I knew. The trials she endured would break any man. Born in Jalisco in the 1930’s, she wasn’t allowed to go to school and instead had to work to contribute to the household expenses. She was separated from her parents at a young age. She married young and began what would be decades of giving birth, to a total of eleven children. Nine of us survived. During this time, she immigrated to the U.S., where she didn’t speak the language, and experienced discrimination and was treated poorly. All of this at a time when women had few rights.
Despite these experiences, she carried herself with grace and never once complained. I remember her telling me about living in a small shack in Mexico with my oldest brother when he was an infant. She was alone, and had to fight off snakes that would make their way into the shack. I picture my tiny mamá with this oversized baby on her hip, fighting off viboras one-handed. And I think to myself, Indiana Jones had whips and a gun! Mi mamá only had her chanclas, and a backbone of steel.
In the U.S., mamá worked as a seamstress in a garment factory before working in steel manufacturing. She was tough. Teamster tough. She once took me with her on the picket lines. I was seven years old, surrounded by agitated Teamsters. I’d never heard mamá raise her voice toward anyone. So that day when I heard her yell out to call someone a “SCAB!” I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew that if mi mamá says you’re a scab, then you must be a scab.
Mamá was a woman of unyielding faith, until her last breath. She lived her life by the teachings of her sagrada biblia. She was married to my father for 70 years. She gave generously to the church, and to the monjitas, even when she had very little herself. There was always a vela prendida to la Virgen de Guadalupe. She prayed to God and to Jesus, but when she needed a miracle, she went straight to la Virgen. I remember as a baby, she’d take my little hand in hers and form a cross with my thumb and my index finger, then guide my hand, teaching me a persignarme. She had me praying before I could even speak! She taught us all to pray. We’d persignarnos getting on the freeway for a safe journey, and pray rosaries when someone died. If mi mamá knew about anyone who was sick, in need, or going on a journey, she was praying for them.
In her final moments, my sisters and I surrounded her bedside and prayed the rosary. As soon as we were done, my beautiful mamá took her last breaths. It was a powerful moment. Mamá spent her life praying for us and keeping us safe, and it was our turn to hold her in prayer. I know she felt safe. I like to think she was met with a warm embrace from la Virgen.
I’m no longer in kindergarten, but I’m back to crying every day when I realize that mi mamá is gone.
And like before, I know we will be reunited again.