Over a decade ago i left a little love note on the fridge for my mother in which i spelled "Mom" in Spanish wrong. I wrote, "no estes tan triste mame, yo te quiero mucho" with a forward stash accent above the last 'e'. (Don't be so sad mome, i love you very much) The misspelled "mom" made her smile and laugh and she instantly forgot all about what was making her so sad. (so i like to think) That note with its yellowed upturned edges, was on the fridge for a very long time. I know she still has it squirreled away somewhere, she is sentimental like that.As time goes by i; like i assume all people who have mothers do, have gone through a range of emotional stages. When i was younger; a small child, i adored her. She was my world. I was madly in love with her. She was young and beautiful and when she walked, it was as if in slow motion. All the other children at school wanted my pretty mother to be theirs. But as my formative years drew on i began to feel the disappointment. She was less a fantastic unicorn in a slow moving meadow and much more a young, single, hardworking, immigrant parent: struggling. I respected her strength and admired her fortitude, but i longed to please her and like most children, longed for her approval, affection and attention. As young adulthood set in, i grew to resent her. I was filled with anger for all the things she did not understand, or things that she did, or did not do, or did wrong. Then after a couple of years away at college i forgot and/or accepted all the glorified and implicit hardship imposed on me, or so i thought.
A couple of years went by, i was now in my early 20's and the choices that my mother made, which i deemed selfish caused me to renounce her. Years of silence between us passed and she sent many letters. I wrote many, but sent none. I was stubborn. I felt hurt and betrayed, abandoned and angry. But she continued to send letters and little gifts. After 3 years elapsed i began to feel guilt. I was no longer angry and it seemed selfish to hurt my mother. We made a date at the Huntington Library. I dressed up because my mother is proper and elegant in that way and i knew it would make her proud to see me "presentable." She cried, and then i cried, and we talked. She looked beautiful, like always. But she was different, softened by time, not as curt. It was as if my absence had warmed her. Her hair was more peppered and magnificent and she had gradually lost the hearing in her left ear. I instantly felt terrible, for my thoughts automatically went to the Cosmic Power: that which guides, arranges and makes everything right in the Universe, and i felt shame for thinking that maybe she had lost her hearing because she never listened...
