Tick. Tock.
“Yo Vivi una vida peor que un perro, mi’ja.” – Mama
Some say that when people are in the most need, that’s when it’s the hardest to find someone to count on. Whether or not such an idea is true this short piece should tell.
I lay with my grandmother for what seems like the longest five minutes ever. The bedroom is almost identical to this same bedroom of 20 years ago. Some furniture has changed: the bed might’ve gotten a tad bit larger, the television a little flatter and now hangs on the wall, but it’s still the same color paint on the walls (that off-white sad color) and in the corner by the entrance door there is a school desk—a classroom desk—covered with velones, Saints, La Virgen de Guadalupe, and artificial flowers. Every night since I could remember my grandmother would stand in front of this desk, over her Saints, and pray for the salvation of her family: living and dead.
She’s wearing and old nightgown, one that I’ve seen many times before, and the frequent wears are evident in the many rips and tears shown on the gown. It’s her favorite, most comfortable nightgown, she says, when people question why she consistently skips over the many other nightgowns that go untouched in her drawers.
The five minutes seem longer each time. Everyday I pick up my son at her house and sit with her for these lengthy and excruciating 300 seconds. I ask her the same question every day: “Como te sientes, mama?” Day after day, she responds the same answer: “Como tres en un Zapato.” Her eyes are droopy. Her hair is thin, short, black, and in a short ponytail. Her legs are up on the bed and her veins are like roots scattered all over, some red and others are blue.
My grandmother, abuela querida, looks old, older than she is. As I sit here and stare at her thinking how long do I have to sit here before I can get up and go tend to the duties that rule my life after work: the kids, dinner, homework, work, baths, talks, and eventually sleep, I wonder what has turned my grandmother, a once vibrant woman, to this old woman lying besides me. Was it the years of hard labor, cleaning after rich folks, packing fish on an assembly line, working in a jewelry factory? Or was it her husband’s beatings, the late night crying, the stress, the loss of her only son to AIDS, the witnessing of the addiction her husband had to alcohol or her son to heroin? Could it have been the cold nights in Nueva York, the clutter of a small two-bedroom apartment, the stoops full of people who didn’t speak Spanish? Was it the fall she suffered that made her 300 thousand dollars richer, but not able to walk comfortably anymore? Was it the desperation and despair?
The Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t allow her to remember that I sit with her everyday for these five minutes to only have the same redundant conversation we had the prior day. Tomorrow she will tell me that she hasn’t seen me in such a long time and that no one visits her anymore. I think maybe she is right: No one visits and I only go for five minutes to pick up my son and leave, but it kills me to see her this way. She is the matriarch of the family. In my eyes she’s so much stronger than she will ever know and she has given up and let her sickness take away her spunk, he vivacity, and her spirit.
When I’m there I feel like I’m visiting an old woman that I do not know and who doesn’t know me. How could these minutes not seem longer than they are? How could the woman who beat the odds, who overcame her alcoholic abusive husband, who prevailed being raped and humiliated, who survived the death of her child, who was forced to abandon the only life she ever knew in a small island 1,600 miles away, and who was left with only the hope that her prayers to God from the corner of her bedroom would be loud enough to be heard…how could she lose this battle?
There is courage running through her veins that I cannot see during those 300 seconds while I sit next to her. I know that it is there because I feel it running through my veins by inheritance. I hate those seconds. They remind me that I’ve already lost the woman who would always be in the kitchen cooking, in the living room with her ears attentive to all, her eyes always watching, her mouth always forming a warm smile, her hands always ready to grab you, hug you, and remind you that all is fine when you’re in Mama’s arms—Mama’s arms will always secure you from the evils of the world. That woman isn’t here any longer. Those seconds provide me with empirical proof that the woman I just described does not exist anymore. So this woman here with me now, while I love her tremendously, only gets 300 seconds of my time and everyday as I walk out of her room yelling, “Bendicion!”, I hate myself. This woman needs me now just like the many times I’ve needed her before, just like I need her now. She needs my time, patience, and faith more so than the vibrant Mama of 20 years prior when we all enjoyed being around her. She needs us now and I know that as I take each step, one quicker than the last, running home to my responsibilities, trying to quiet the voices in my head that attempt to make me reconsider my direction and force me to turn around and lie down with her for an hour, while she tells me that she hasn’t seen me in forever and that no one visits anymore, but this time instead of telling her that she saw me yesterday, I’ll go along with her and tell her she is right, I haven’t been around, but that I’ve missed her more than I could her ever tell her with all the words from all the languages in all the world.