Messy but thriving

 “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away” — Johnny Cash

My Black History Month gift to myself was to sit my Black ass down and be still for the month. I’m not sure I lived up to that goal, but there’s always next year. So here I sit with you, a month older with the same bleeding heart, and I want to share Elizabeth Bea Heredia with you.

Elizabeth (who people fondly called Lisa), my mother, died ten years ago today. 3,650 days of “I have to call mom!” but remembering that she’s gone right as I reach my phone. Long summers of knowing there would be no more set trips to garage sales, or nights spent watching the airplanes take off. All of a sudden, the world decided that on a random day in March that the significance behind circus peanut candy, state fair cream puffs, and Elvis Presley meant nothing and everything all at once. And some days, when her presence is what I need to make it through, I remind myself of these things – things that still stand and remind me of her when she isn’t here to do so herself.

I write this not detached from the fact that two weeks ago today, I almost joined her, wherever she is. I’m sure this will ring true for other moments in my life, but it was there alone in the hospital that I realized I really, truly needed my mother. I did not need her to make things okay or tell me I was loved. No, I needed something familiar and solid – I needed her stress three days before Christmas, her anger when my classmates teased me for being adopted, her wisdom when she woke up early on Thanksgiving and remade her tuna salad because she had a dream the batch she made went bad and people got sick.

As my body and heart recover, I am learning how powerful time is, in all forms. The time with her. The time to heal. The time to remember. The time to cry. So, I want to take this time, with you, to introduce you to her. With being known as a long-winded storyteller, and in wanting to keep this post intentional, I’m going to make a list – a list of traits, a list of memories, a list full of vulnerability.

• She was born in 1948. A white woman in Waukegan, I believe. Alot of her history died with her and her sister (Aunt Judy, who was even crazier).
• She used to say “worshed” instead of “washed”. I used to tell her it was her German side sneaking through.
• She was 6′. Most of my teenhood was spent with her wheelchair bound, and it only came up during the casket conversation.
• Elizabeth was a foster parent before she adopted us five. I believe she fostered up to 20 children, but I could be wrong (I think it was more) – I was the last and final one. I wonder about them and the version of my mom they got to see.
• She was a yeller. We have a yelling family. Yelling and arguing/bickering is extremely normal – and in many ways, used to express love.
• She was the WORST to buy presents for, so I always aimed to make her cry. If there were tears, I did well. She’s the reason that sentimentality is extremely important to me. The last gift I bought her was a customized music box figure in the shape of a mother pushing her daughter on a swing, and it said, “You are my sunshine”.
• She used to sing me asleep, mainly the song You Are My Sunshine. I own a sign for my place with the lyrics that I still haven’t found the strength to hang up yet.
• I truly never slept alone until the night she died. I spent my childhood running to her room due to nightmares so often that my little spot on the floor became normal. Then, after my dad passed (I was nine), I slept with her frequently to ensure we was okay. She got sicker in my teenhood and I helped take care of her, and it made it easier to ensure she got her breathing treatments throughout the night.
• She had these beautiful blue eyes. I mean, absolutely stunning. I used to feel jealous at how blue they were. Somewhere in the development of my personality, blue became my favorite color.
• She loved yellow roses.
• She loved roosters. We had some growing up, and the kitchen was completely rooster themed.
• We had a go to restaurant – the Traditional Pancake House. It’s closed down now, and I mourn the lost opportunity to step in there and hear the employees tell me stories about my parents.
• She used to take us on garage sale adventures during the summer. Entire days spent going from house to house. I have a love for things that have been used and loved because of her.
• I’m in the mist of a break up. It’s messy and hard, and I’m both devastated that its ended and grateful that I shared love, time, and space with them. My mother would’ve warned me about wearing my heart on my sleeve, told me that love meant to be mine would find it’s way back to me, and made me one of my favorite dishes (probably arroz con leche). I’d love to believe, if she was still here, that we would’ve stayed up all night watching Hallmark romcoms as I cried into tubs of ice cream and cursed her for letting me be a Disney kid with Disney love dreams.
• My mother – same woman who would’ve said “fuck them” as I let myself dramatically drown in “never agains” and believed my loss of the relationship meant the world was ending – would’ve invited them to Christmas and made sure they had gifts and foods that respected their food restrictions. She wouldn’t have taken no for an answer. She would’ve made jokes about the poly lifestyle, forced my exes to try coquito, and have me personally offer them the sugar cookies we made days before (to prove that I could act civilized through my chaos, which she’d fondly remind them I embody). They’d be a part of the family and you’d have to go through her if that was a problem (and absolutely no one was going poke at a lion like that). She’s the reason I believe in love transcending, in change being weird but okay. She’s the literal tear in my heart (I love Twenty One Pilots!) and the reason I can’t be bitter even if I wanted to.
• Elizabeth wasn’t a drinker. I think it’s because everyone else on my dad’s side is. She would have one drink – Bacardi and Pepsi – and babysit it all night. Her breathe smelled horrible, but she was always alert, in her corner in the kitchen next to the stairs.
• My mother was that bitch. Without getting too much into family stories, she had put a man through a glass table once. I also believe there are stories of her fighting (and winning) some of my cousins or uncles that haven’t been shared. Yet, she was always the safe house, the mom to run to, the one who had all of the answers. I’ll always strive to be the woman people both run away from and run towards – in every lifetime.
• My mother paid attention, and I try to as well (and I’m bad at it, truth be told, especially when I’m trying not to be bad at it). She bought me Hairspray off of one music video I saw on Music On Demand and wouldn’t shut up about it. I strive to love and see people this intensely.
• Her favorite color was purple.
• She’d sit on her the phone with her best friend Nancy (who has also passed), saying nothing, and watching the same show as her. Usually Dancing with the Stars, General Hospital, All My Children, or Days of Our Lives. She taught me how silence and presence is just as important as anything else.
• Elizabeth taught me how to turn pain back into love. She couldn’t have children and thus started fostering and adopting. There are parts of my childhood shadowed in abuse, and it’s encouraged me to get two degrees and work on opening a nonprofit. I ever turned every scar, every wound, every anything into something myself or others can find joy from.
• My mother is the reason I’m spiritual. She wasn’t into God as much as she was into spirits, into the complexity of death, etc. The stories she shared (one specifically with me in it) will remain private for the sake of the respect of my dead loved one but know that my mother had a sixth sense.

This list doesn’t do her justice. There’s facts about my mother that got buried with her, stories told that I haven’t been in the room to hear, and assumptions where opportunities and experiences were supposed to be. Moreover, there are experiences I’ll never have with her. She wont be there when I get my second masters degree, or when I have my first child, or when I get married. She won’t be there when I buy a house, when I win that election, when I graduate from their phase of healing. These facts devastate me, but I also know she wouldn’t want that. She wouldn’t want my tears, or my day in bed today as I reckon with the fact that I can’t remember the sound of her voice but would know it anywhere if I heard it. No, she’d want me to get up, to watch Say Yes to the Dress, and make myself some arroz con gandules in her honor.

That’s it exactly – she’d want to be honored, for everything she was and everything she didn’t get the chance to be. And I hope this list does a bit of justice. I hope this list reminds her of how much I miss her, of how much of an impact she has on me to this day. We fought the night she died – a stupid fight that ended with her saying she believed we’d be happy when she died. I rolled my eyes, said that wasn’t true, and walked away. There are days when that fight weighs heavy on me, as I was too young to find the right words to make it better. Even during my brush with death, I found myself excited at the opportunity to tell her that she was wrong, that I felt lost without her, that losing her has been the worst pain I’ve experienced. But I also have to believe that the absence of my presence would do the same damage as hers did.

Death, grief, love. So simple, so time stopping, so expected. So as I’m still here and still breathing, I carry her memory with me everywhere. I can’t say confidently that I’ve made her proud or that I’m doing the right thing half the time. But I can confidently say I am and will forever be my mother’s daughter – and that fact no one can take from me.

Thank you, reader. For grieving her with me. For remembering her with me. For seeing her with me.

This is for Elizabth Bea Heredia.

Until next time, my weeping willows!

~ Amillia