By Adelina Treviño Bradshaw
My mother rarely called me by my name.
She said mija,
mi amor,
my little bird as I flitted about the house.
She said my beautiful daughter,
mijita,
mi cielo,
and my love while she held me in her arms.
In two languages,
she rained down terms of endearment for thirty years.
And when she died, they dried up.
© 2021
There is a meme that pops up from time to time that says something about how by the time you are in your 30s, you have a favorite spatula.
And I do, well, did. A few days ago it broke, the flat part snapped right off at the handle in the pan. I yelled a guttural "No!" as I stared at it, this delightful utensil no longer functional. But it was much bigger than just broken plastic.
My mother had bought it for me. She had initially bought herself one and liked it so much she gave one to me and one to my sister. When I thought about it a few days later, I realized it was at the minimum 12 years old but probably 3-5 years older than that. It had a long good life for a plastic tool you dragged across a heated piece of metal but I was still gutted.
I remember in Year One (2016) realizing that one day everything my mother bought me would disappear. Things would get worn out and make their way to the garbage. Things would get lost. Things would break. The thought of it rang a deep bell of despair in my chest that reverberated through my bones. It echoed back and forth, the realization leaving a deep sad heat in my belly.
Everything she had seen in a store that sparked the thought "I think Leslie would like this" would be gone. I love buying gifts for others and I know my mama did too. Her propensity was deep and sometimes at Christmas she would admit to buying us more gifts but she was unable to find them and she'll send them along when she does.
When I looked at that spatula in two pieces, all of those Year One feelings came back. The world lost its color. There was no joy left. How could there be? How was I going to function when the world was over? I sat on my couch in a daze as I heard the Teams' ding from my computer.
Things, of course, calmed down with time and some Raspberry Lemonade (a beverage I used in 2016 to avoid booze). But it felt like a betrayal that those feelings are still there, deep inside lurking.
I know logically that even after seven years, grief is real and present and will be a companion the rest of my life. But those Year One feelings that constantly hit me day after day in 2016 felt as if they were long in the past. The gnawing heat that would start deep in my core and extended out to my clammy hands could still rear it's ugly head. And to be very honest, I'm very not comfortable with that truth.
All of this to say, anyone have a good spatula recommendation?
Two months ago I sat by your side
From three (or was it four?) AM until the others were up.
And unlike the early days
When we woke
Before our sleep shift was up,
Before the alarm beeped on,
Before the sun drenched the windows.
But this was Day Eight into Day Nine.
And I sat cocooned next to you
In blankets that smelt of home
Holding your hand.
Your hand which only moved when you were in pain,
Your hand that was still surprisingly cool and soft and constant,
That held my head when I was born,
That pulled me forward when I was too frightened to step,
That cleaned my wounds and reassured me the world was safer than it felt.
Your motherly yet always-chilled hand reached for mine to warm you up
In church,
During walks,
At dinners when I had come home from a thousand miles away
My little furnace hands pressed tight against yours.
On the final day when the sun rose on your body,
Your hand was in mine.
“Look, Mama. The sunrise," I said for the ninth time.
I held on
As I noticed your pulse weakening
And I heard your breaths change shape
And become shallow like pools on the sidewalk after summer rain.
And I knew (in the way I know things for certain) that this was actually going to be the last.
I called the nurse as you gripped again and again
In a pain that I will never know the strength of
But was bad enough for you to fight out of your morphine.
Or maybe it wasn’t pain,
Maybe it was you fighting to be with us just a bit longer,
To squeeze and send coded messages of love through muscle movement.
But I called the nurse.
And upped your dosage.
And you stilled then, until you stilled for good.
Two months ago, I reveled in your hand,
in its life while you were dying.
How your skin was soft and dark,
How your veins pulsed and
looked the same, speckled from the 69 years you earned,
I had decided we could live there forever holding hands.
It wouldn’t be a bad life.
After you went,
I sat shocked still clasping fast to you.
My madrina came and grasped you goodbye.
She shouted surprise at your post-mortem warmth.
But it was only because I had warmed you up
one last time.
