corazón

I made my mother cry in public.

While the woman at the next table cut her bagel with cream cheese and tomato with a plastic knife and fork, I made my mother shed big wet, snotty tears in the sandwich shop where we bought deli trays for my father’s memorial.

And my brother told me I did the right thing.
And his girlfriend told me I did the right thing.
And my fiance told me I did the right thing.

And still, as she cried, I felt as if I was speaking the wrong language.

And I thought about all the times that people say, “I don’t know what to say” and “There are no words…”  And maybe it’s not that there aren’t any words but that there aren’t the right words in YOUR language.  Like at that moment, the word “heart” seemed to stop, stiff on my lips, but a broken corazón seemed so sad and wet and bloody, and correct.  And I wanted to tell my mother that I felt the same way, but I didn’t know that she would be able to even hear it if I said it just then.

Because after I told my mother to have faith in my brother and let him fight his own way through this life, she opened.  And when she opened, it wasn’t to say something about my brother, and it wasn’t about his girlfriend and it wasn’t about this moment.  It was about her and her corazón.  And the awful pain, and the way it feels when it seems that your heart is beyond repair.

My mother sobbed, “I will never have someone who I share that history with!”

And we won’t.  But hearing it said aloud, in any language, I think we all felt this huge relief and slow healing start, even if I wasn’t able to say it back.

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