WAVE #13: Everything Has a Remedy...

Why that phrase hits differently now.

My mami on her birthday last year— fixing things and working outdoors was one of her favorite things.

On this day, she would have turned 55.

I’ve tried to avoid the feelings around not being able to call my mom or give her a hug, but today, I did what I’ve been avoiding since she died: looking at videos of her.

Pictures are meaningful, but it’s the videos that really capture how ALIVE she was. She existed as a heart-beating, breathing human, as we all do, yes, but she had this vivacity in her. The hundreds of expressions on her face and in her body, the intonations, and the repertoire of dichos, sayings that she had stored in her mind. Always something available for every situation.

Avoiding her videos was a way to shield myself from the flood of emotions I knew they’d bring. But today, on her birthday, it felt right to face them, to remember her not just in still frames but in all her vibrant, animated glory. It’s these memories that make her absence both more painful and more precious.

Today, I couldn’t help but think of the dicho she’d say when shit hit the fan and things felt irreparable: “Todo tiene remedio excepto la muerte”— everything has a solution except death.

Perhaps that’s why she loved DIY projects so much. She had faith in being able to repair a tattered dress or bring an old piece of furniture back to life because she understood firsthand that the one thing she couldn’t repair was what death had taken.

I hold onto that understanding with more clarity now.

It’s bittersweet, of course. But mostly, I see that I have this LIFE, and I get to respond to it, play with it, fall down, and get back up again.

It's clearer to me than ever that life truly feels like a gift when we choose to embrace all its facets.

This morning, I sat in my car after Pilates and looked at the video of her blowing out her birthday candles last year, the last time she’d ever blow them out. Videos of her singing her heart out with karaoke. Dancing in the kitchen. Caressing dogs and coddling babies. In the end, it’s the moments that remain. I looked at old notes from the last months of her life. I cried like a baby.

I want to share some with you now…

December 11, 2023
New moon, new tumors – mami showed me the CT scan results, and the doctor wrote down that they won’t be able to do anything surgically because they’ve spread too much. They’re everywhere:

Left lung
Liver
Lymph nodes

My mother is leaving soon, I think.

December 19, 2023
Today, mami told me, “En este punto, la muerte es salvadora.” [At this point, death is a savior.]
“What does it feel like to be so close to death, mami?” I ask her.
“Que la vida es un segundo—life is but a second,” she responds.

December 20, 2023
Mami caught me sniffling and asked, “¿Qué tiene mi chiquita?”[What’s wrong, my little one?] and hugged me and tickled my back. She serves even when she’s the one in pain, taking the morphine. God, she is so beautiful. She is so skinny. Her belly inflamed. She has so much pain in her left lung and back and lower left side. It’s everywhere. Everywhere.

December 23, 2023
She promised that after dying she would come to me as a butterfly or a Vivaldi song. She loves Vivaldi. And also “canciones corrientes” (basic songs).
“Es divertido ser corriente a veces,” she says. It’s fun to be ‘basic’ sometimes. I told her I don’t want her to die, but that I don’t want her to suffer. “I don’t want to die, either,” she says. She hugged me so tight, cradling me in her arms. I made sure not to press on her left chest. Big tumors there. I love her.
Why do we waste so much time harboring anger and hate towards others?
Love is clearly the way.

January 1, 2024
I don’t know how much time is left with mami. Mi Mamachu. But it feels close. She feels more and more far from me, from us, from this plane. When she’s awake, she’s confused and doesn’t make sense. But she tells me she loves me “mi niña, más de lo que te imaginas”– my girl, more than you can imagine— when I tell her that I love her. She holds my hand, and she still grips it hard even if her eyes are closed.

It doesn’t feel real.

She is here now, even though she’s not who she was a few days ago.

I don’t want to think of her absence.

She is here now.

She is here now.

And so, on this day, she would have turned 55.

Today, my dad, brothers, and I are gathering loved ones who are near to eat burgers and watch her favorite movie on a big screen outdoors, The Lion King.

She’d recount how I would hide my face when the scene where Mufasa dies came up. It was, as I’m sure it was for many other children who watched that movie, my first concept of death. It was an uncomfy and difficult concept to grasp, that parents (or anything, for that matter) aren’t on this plane forever in their physical forms.

To learn to accept the impermanence of life is the biggest practice of all.

I miss the woman. It’s impossible to not live life differently because of her life. AND her absence. Now more than ever, I don’t waste time telling people that I love them or that I’m grateful for them. I’m quicker to say no to things that don’t resonate and to be clear with others when I do want something.

It’s a work in progress and the rest of the lessons are still downloading, but what I can say is that mami is still close. I wish she were here in physical form, but she certainly feels close.

I went to the doctor this morning, and sure enough, there she was:

Leaving you with one of my mom’s favorite karaoke songs. The final verse expresses the fullness with which my mom lived and how she embraced the end with the same passion:

Under the shade of a tree

And to the beat of my guitar

I sing this huapango joyfully

Because my life is finished

And I want to die singing

As the cicada dies.

Loving you always, mami.

Con amor (with love),

Flor