My mother was a poor child. My mother got no healthcare, my mother didnāt get much food. My mother was a skinny-legged little girl in Cuba with bad teeth and a lazy eye, probably from malnutrition. She was made fun of, she was bullied, she was teased. My mother turned fourteen. Her father was imprisoned for fighting against Castro, escaped and had to flee the country or be killed. Her mother was uneducated, she'd worked as a maid from the time she was 7 years old and was raising 4 children in a revolution-torn country, alone.
My mother is beautiful. Taller now, still skinny, still a lazy eye, still bad teeth, but beautiful. My mother likes a boy. The boy likes her back. Seemingly out of nowhere, her mother tells her to say goodbye to everything sheās ever known. My mother is moving in haste to a new country and has to leave her 15 year old brother behind because he is now of age to be drafted to the army and is not permitted to come. She doesnāt want to leave. She is scared. Her mother tells her she must never tell anyone she doesnāt want to leave. My mother says goodbye to the boy. He gives her a ring. She cannot take it with her. She can only take the clothes on her back. My mother is now the oldest sibling in a strange place. The people who donāt speak her language give my family painful inoculations that will leave them with a big, distinctive scar for the rest of their lives. A scar that they will share with every other Cuban that fled to the United States. They give my mother and her younger siblings grape popsicles. My mother has never had a grape popsicle. It is not good.
My mother is thrust into an American high school where no one speaks Spanish, no one will help her, and no one cares. She still has a lazy eye, sheās still skinny, sheās more beautiful. She works hard, she meets a few people like her, she graduates.
My mother is 21, my mother is dancing to disco on the weekends, my mother is blonde with Farrah Fawcettās haircut, my mother is beautiful. My mother helps her mother when my grandfather gets too drunk. My mother works at an office and helps my grandparents with their bills. My mother meets my father, another refugee with his own trauma, my mother is enchanting. My mother loves my father, marries my father, has me. My mother was wide-eyed. My father is a bad husband. My mother knows she and I will be better off alone. Alone again. My mother is scared. My mother leaves. My mother works harder, my mother breaks her back, my mother puts me through private school by herself. My mother is inspiring. My father doesnāt contribute. My father never shows up to see me. My mother never says one bad word about him (to me). My mother is so, so beautiful.
My mother has a teenager who doesnāt always appreciate her. My mother loves me. We fight, a lot. But my God, does my mother love me. My mother gave me everything she never had. I move away. Far away, for work. My mother misses me. I donāt think about that enough. I roll my eyes when she waits and watches me go through security at the airport each time I fly away. Itās been 10 years now. She still does it. āYouāre going to be waiting foreverā I text her from the line. I can see her standing far away, trying to look for me in the melee. She texts back, āI will wait forever, gladly.ā
My motherās eye got better. So did her teeth. Her legs are still skinny. My motherās smile is my favorite smile in the world.
My mother is so beautiful.
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