Hi my dear reader, let you a story.
Last weekend, my husband and I drove four hours to Miami to attend a book event for Esmeralda Santiago, author of When I Was Puerto Rican. One of my favorite books of all time. She just released Las Madres with Penguin Random House. It’s a novel about a group of women and their daughters who traveled to Puerto Rico from New York in search of understanding each other better. They are then trapped in PR during Hurricane Maria. During the hurricane, a long-kept secret is revealed blowing their lives wide open.
The event is at 7 pm. It’s 5 and I’m in my nephew’s home. He and his wife are in their early twenties and just had a baby boy. My seventeen-year-old niece lives with them. My husband and I pull some chairs to form a circle in their living room.
They’ve just got the place and don’t have sofas yet. I’m in a long maxi dress on the edge of my seat, eager to leave. My nephew asks me about my life as a child and about his mom’s life.
My siblings and I are children of addiction. So are my nephews and niece. They are interested in the whys. It’s a long story of intergenerational trauma, addiction, and domestic abuse. I tell them stories that highlight the kindness, struggles, and love in my family, of their mother’s. I choose my words wisely to focus on the toll trauma can take on a person. There’s no need to reiterate trauma’s ugliness. They know it too well. My intention is to take the edge out of resentment and to provide hope, if not for the previous generations, then for the future ones.
I tell them what I’ve discovered in the years of researching for my memoir.
I share traumas I write about but don’t always tell.
They drill me with questions, eager to know what keeps our family in pain and their mother away.
I look at my watch. Still have an hour. I cast light on my own mother’s responsibility for my sister’s behaviors.
“Titi,” my nephew interrupts,” it’s late you, but still can make it.”
I check in with myself, and with the group. We’re still in a circle. Now we have the coffee my husband has prepared for us in our hands. In my mind, I travel thousands of years back when our ancestors held oral traditions dear. Our circle has become a place where the current turns back on itself, the river flows upstream, and time itself seems to have stopped. I catch a breath and find some perspective before saying, “No, this is where I need to be today. This is healing.”
As I mine and chase stories, I often miss the ones in front of me. Last weekend, even if I missed my favorite author’s event and fell behind on my reading, writing, and substack, I experienced a rare moment when my family reverted to our oral traditions in an organic and healing way. I’m grateful for it and happy that I’m learning how to value these moments. And as for you my dear reader, I wish you many moments where you feel joy, balance, and healing. Thank you for reading this.
I can't wait to see your book!!! Thanks for your good wishes :)
I love your story. I need this kind of healing with my own children but am having a difficult time convincing them to discuss the situation :(