by Geoff Gouveia

Two rings in my ear. A weak hello? on the other end. When I tell her who it is, she doesn’t recognize the words. I tell her soy Geoffrey. No recognition. She asks if it is one of my brothers, younger or older. I decline. She finds her way to my name. Having processed that, she tells me she is lonely. Her day is not good and her shoulder has a lot of pain. This last part is in Spanish. I am the only one in the family who knows the other language.  She is not well; she doesn’t hide this fact.

I hate the situation. I hate the pain that causes her to cry out. I hate the time that slips like sand through a hand. Her life is water dripping between the fingers of a cupped palm. This is not the woman I visited as a child.

This is not the woman who kissed us when we cried. This is not the woman who prepared Spanish rice for Thanksgiving. This is not the woman who laughed at me when I lied about combing my hair. This is not the woman who chased my older brother through the house with a leather paddle. This is not the woman who protected her garden from age. This is not the woman who woke us to make omelets. This is not the woman who taught us the importance of dignity and strength. Collective blame replaced her with a fragile imposter.

It is her fault. It is also mine. It is the fault of time. It is the fault of my family. It is the cultural divide, the one that exists in her mid 1900’s Spanish mind. It is the fault of a 2015 Southern California driving culture. Autonomy is the highest price of entrance into our society. She doesn’t have this. If she did, it wouldn’t cure her loneliness. She'd spend it cleaning the house to her exact standards. Like I said, it’s her fault. But also mine.

When I visit her, I cut the flowers off the bushes in the front yard. Her eyes do not see the front yard anymore. The flowers will make her smile. She does when I place them on the table but then tells me she is nervous. Unaware of the context, I shrug my shoulders and kiss her on the cheek.

Thinking back to that moment, it is age tapping her shoulder. He reminds her of the ticking she has left. Mentally she has left- when I give her pills to take, she pushes them away. Twenty years prior, I am four and I don’t want to take my medicine. A consoling mijo, a rub on the shoulders, tome lo – and I do, I take it. The reverse occurs now; she is frail and hunched over. The hand I place on her back is light, lifted above the deteriorated absent muscle strength. Tome lo I whisper and she pushes away the pill.

If I were up there, pulling strings, I’d have pulled Yaya’s after her fall, right after her hair turned all white. That wasn’t up to me. My job is to cut flowers and watch her cry, to kiss her on the cheek and tell her I love her, to hold her hand and calm her cry, to write words like this and wish I never did.

 

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