Here Lies Hope

Just before I slipped into the operating room for my D & C, my Mama caught my arm and whispered,
If you're scared chiquita sing a song. Think of your song right now and sing it loudly.

Under a fiery Autumn sun, I couldn't get that song out of my head as we planted the tree that my dear hermana Bgirl gave us in memoriam, a plant she chose especially because it blooms in the dead of winter even when the ground is hard, cold and unforgiving.

There is something beautiful about this kind of resilience, the notion that this tender creature can thrive under the harshest of conditions.

It felt good to dig the hole, to feel the pulse of the earth in my hands once again. I hadn't been outside in days and I'd forgotton how easily you can get lost in the trance of the garden. I could hear the neighbor's chickens pecking and scratching, the wind shaking the remaining leaves off our fig tree, the laughter of children playing in the park.

As I buried the roots of the tree, I also buried with it all the emptiness, melancholy and loss of the last few days. I buried fear, despair and uncertainty too.

And in its place I planted hope.

I am in the wilderness You are in the music In the man's car next to me Somewhere in my sadnessI know I won't fall apart completely When I need to be rescued And I need a place to swimI have a rock to cling to in the stormWhen no one can hear me callingI have you I can sing to -Sade

Expect to Wait

You have two options. You can wait for it to pass on its own. It is so small the size of a snow pea that it will probably come quickly or I can schedule the D and C procedure as early as Monday. What are you thinking?

I'm thinking I have no idea what it will be like to pass it on my own and the prospect frightens me. By D and C you mean Dilation and Curettage, I cannot even fathom the idea right now.

I think I will wait.

I leave her office with nothing but a pile of crumpled tissues and her words knocking around in my head, no hand-out detailing what to expect, no comforting anecdotes from women in my shoes who can hold my hand out the door.

On Saturday nothing comes. I pace the hallways. In the rain I walk the neighborhood.

Please go little spirit. Please go now.

Under an archway I call my friend's sister who is a midwife,
Is there something natural, I can take to get this going?

I drink a uterine stimulant, a small dose of both blue cohosh and black cohosh, a mixture that she tells me many Native Americans have used to induce labor.

You will feel contractions, you feel lower back pain, you feel cramping, you feel your heart racing with adrenaline.

By evening I welcome the contractions knowing that they signal the beginnings of the passing and after an hour I am strangley relieved to feel the bleeding. I tell myself I think it is gone now.

Today at my ultrasound I'm face to face with the same woman who broke the news to me just five days ago. She has more of the same to share.

I'm so sorry honey it has not passed yet.

The empty gelatinous sac up on the screen is as big as it was five days ago.

It is elongated now though which means it is getting ready, she adds quickly rushing to hand me kleenex.

I wanted so much for my body to do this on her own so I could have the last goodbye in privacy. I somehow assumed there would be this terrible grand finale but that it would be over quickly.
I naively assumed it would take hours not days.

I didn't expect the waiting.

While I wait to speak to the nurse, I write a list of the symptoms I wish I had been prepared for, A Girlfriends Guide to Miscarriage if you will:

expect the drastic drop in hormones to render you crazy, nauseous, unpredictable, expect cramping three times worse than the kind you get during your period, expect lower back pain that grinds on your nerves, expect to feel light headed, expect headaches, expect to feel anxious, expect to feel amped up one minute and then emotionless the next, expect uncontrollable tears, expect insomnia, expect to feel the same exhaustion of pregnancy, expect to lose your appetite, expect to feel inconsolable, expect to hear friends tell you its happened to them, expect to feel that this is no consolation, expect to feel angry, expect to feel relieved that nature took its course, expect to feel loved, expect to feel blessed by the people who call you day after day, who bring you warm soup, homemade bread, who offer to take your child while you go to breakfast with your husband, who cancel their trip to stay by your side.
Expect to realize that life goes on.
Expect to wait.

Sanaras Manana

Sana sana colita de rana. Heal, Heal, the tail of the little frog.

Si no sanas hoy sanaras manana. And if you don't heal today you will heal tomorrow.

Standing over me, as I lay on the couch biting through the cramping, waiting for the passing, the G rubs my belly with the palms of his little hands chanting the words over and over.

I've never heard him say it in its entirety. I didn't know he knew all the words.

I concentrate on his little voice, my Abue's words rejuvenating themselves.

He lays against me, takes my face into his hands and pulls me so close that I can feel his eyelashes brush against my own.

I will make you feel better mama, he whispers.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

i can't know all that you must feel.

i can love you through all that you feel.

My Body Told Me Last Night

My body speaks to me when I'm pregnant there is this humming inside, this business of muscles stretching, ligaments pulling, breasts swelling, a bee hive of activity making room and preparing for that tiny little embryo whose beating heart flaps like the wings of a hummingbird and whose pulse ever subtle becomes in synch with my own.

But last night I knew the humming had stopped.

It was almost instaneous. By evening my breasts had lost that biting tingle and the warm place holding that beautiful, fluttering light suddenly grew cold.

I was scheduled for an ultrasound today to make sense of the bleeding and of the conversation I had with my body in the dark of the night. She'd already broken the news to me gently so I didn't really need the ultra sound technician to tell me,

I am so sorry honey, your baby is not viable.

I didn't need her to show me the empty sac up on that screen. I didn't need her to point out that that tiny little speck inside should be moving and squirming and turning cartliage into bone by now.
I didn't need to hear it.
My body told me last night.

Speak my language?

Slouching in our seats waiting for the plane, the G and I can't help but tune in to the intense conversation between the two girls across the way. The girl telling the story is clearly sharing something funny as she holds her stomach gasping for air, gutting out laughter that sounds more like firecrackers. Her friend is equally hysterical, slapping the seat and pushing on her friend's shoulder as if to say "no way."

They are not speaking English mama

No G they are not speaking English

And they are NOT speaking Spanish, the G says raising an eyebrow confused.


You're right mijo. I think they are speaking Chinese. People speak many different and beautiful languages and you are lucky that you are learning two of them. Quien habla dos lenguas vale por dos, I say aloud to him echoing the words my mother has always told me. He who speaks two languages counts for two.

He continues to listen to them nodding his head as though he's understanding every word.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Ching chong chang you wan fry rye?" R mutters as he brushes up against our new classmate K.
K gives a quick nervous laugh as if he's expected to find the comment funny and returns to his seat.

You wouldn't expect R to say these kind of words as a Mexican boy who knows what its like to be teased. I've seen R many times on the receiving end of cruel jokes about his short stature, his oversized glasses and his crooked teeth. They call him "el feo" the ugly one and I know as he whispers these cruelties to the new kid it is really just a release of his own shame, insecurity and vulnerablity. He knows what's it like to be different and somehow there is a shame in that, better to point it out in someone else and reposition the target.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
How do we teach cultural literacy? Should it happen in the classroom? Do we do enough at home to expose our children to the beauty of other places, peoples and traditions? How can people understand one another when neighborhoods are largely segregated? Do we step outside our comfort zones to do so?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
White Center is a large Latino neighborhood outside of the city. One Sunday I convinced the Docta to make the half hour trip from our house to attend a mass in Spanish at a beautiful old church nestled among Poplar trees. The Docta would tell you he was only game because I promised we'd ask the locals where we could find the best mexi food in town but I know better he knew it meant the world to me that we all go as a family. I was in for it for the language. I wanted the G to be submerged in Spanish. I wanted him to hear it everywhere, in the songs and in the voices of children his own age speaking to their Mamas.

After mass, in the parking lot I asked a half a dozen people, "where do you go to find really good comida autentica?"

El Estacion, they told me.

When we arrived to the packed parking lot, we watched our church mates lining up out the door. The menu was in Spanish and to the Docta's delight they were serving ice cold cokes in glass bottles just like in my Abue's neighborhood in Monterrey.

Chicken Pozole
Tortillas hecho a mano
The Docta needs me to translate. Nobody speaks English.

Quesadilla por favor the G makes a request

Mas Salsa, he says later.

Ten Mama, here you go, he hands me a crumbled up napkin to throw away.

It was as though a button was switched on, the G begins speaking Spanish instantly, the Spanish I've been begging him to use with me. He does it effortlessly as though its his own native tongue.
As we finish up the last of our pozole and taco drippings, I say to the Docta,
Who would have known it is only a short drive down the road to end up smack dab in the middle of my grandma's neighborhood and in a place that feels so much like home.

Read between the lines