drawing by Janice Maupin (my mom)

I want to convince my mom that I am her daughter. I don´t know how. It´s not that she doesnt recognize me exactly. We are not at that point yet and I would like to prolong it. In my last few months in Córdoba, every time that I talked to her on the phone, she always said the same thing: "It´s time for you to come home now. I´m your mom. You are my little girl."

Now back, I found the house full of old photos that she has been taking out of boxes. There are a lot of me at all ages and she looks at them and shows them to me affectionatly. But I don´t know if she knows that I, standing next to her, am the same person as the one in the photos.

For a while now, usually when we are sitting together on the couch watching tv, she askes me "What was your mom like?" At first I laughed at said "YOU are my mom!" and pretended that it was obvious that she knew that and that she just got confused. "Oh yeah, I know that." she would say. But she keeps asking me every couple of days and I began to wonder why this question keeps coming up.

Last week, we were walking down the street and she saw a tree and remembered that she had one just like it in the house that we lived in before this one. It was the house where she raised me during her 10 years as a single mom. I told her that yes, we had that kind of tree at the Sheldon St. house. She said "Oh! So you were at that house too?" "Yeah, we lived there together when I was little. You fed me, made me do my homework, we played in the backyard and you sang me to sleep at night. You dont remember that?" "No," incredulously. "Well, they were really good years. It is a beautiful house and you were my mom. Like you are now."
"How nice!"

It´s incredible how her lucidity changes from one day to the next or with her emotional state or where she is. There are days when you hardly notice something is wrong. That she draws and laughs and waters the plants and talks about the weather. And even other deeper commentaries about her husband and thier life together. She has noticed, for example, that he is a bit depressed and that he has been for a long time now. But she had no idea why this would be. She also asks me if I miss my friends in Córdoba. She draws incredibly. I mention all this so that you know she is not completely gone. Just sometimes and more and more often.

Yesterday I had kind of a meltdown. Stress and worry culminated in a terrible mood. I didnt have any more patience for her and we got into a tiff. I ended up walking away and leaving her in the garage. I came into the house and I threw things, yelled that I couldnt do this anymore that I hated her and I cried as if I were 15 again. Oh man, how we faught when I was 15! But then, 15 minutes later, she came upstairs, into my bedroom and said she was sorry and took me in her arms. Now reconciled, we layed down on my bed and she stroked my hair. I was shocked that this scenario from before still worked, and was thinking that maybe she was not as far gone as I had thought. That maybe I could be more emotionally candid with her....and then she asked me again;

"What was your mom like?"

This time I was determined to convince her that it was her.
"You are my mom. Do you remember when you were pregnant and that you had a baby, a long time ago?"
"Yes."
"Well, that baby was me. And now I´m all grown up. I don´t look like your little girl anymore but we are still mother and daughter. Does that make sense?"
"Hmmm... no."

Ah, fuck it, maybe it doesn´t matter. Because when when we sit together, I still feel in her touch that she is my mother and I am her daughter. I think she feels it too. Even if she doesn´t understand it.

(originally written and posted in the spanish version of this blog April 29. 2007)