Remembering the Normalcy... Gone
Yes, I had heard there was a virus around and it was becomimg the top news of the past days. People were commenting about it. There were concerns; I had them too. But never in my darkest nightmares, I visualized the outcome this microscopic agent that would not only disrupt the macrocosmo, but also my world. I had believed myself a survivor and in recovery of the 2017 Hurricane Maria and the recent January, 2020 earthquake and its aftermaths. I had transformed from a spectator with a vicarious experience of hurricanes and earthquakes, to a first-hand witness of being in the midst of these catastrophes.
So we had a lockdown, while it wasn't the most appealing experience, I believed it a short-term impletation. But it wasn't so and then came the masks that now are part of me, but at first felt as an invador to who I was. But more than being in our homes or adding a new accessory as we went out, it was that life tranformed. The new one came to my life not only brought the pandemic challenges, but others I had not imagined will be part of my existence.
Last night as I was packing the needed items for the week, the anniversary and its meaning in my life visited me. Nostalgia for the life that would never return in my personal sphere brought an undescribed sadness like the verses of John Keats's poem "Ode to the Nightingale" "My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains/ My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,/ Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains". But then I started to reflect as my ancestors faced pain and hardships that made my sorrow of loss a grain of sand in the vast shore of life.
Abuela Che lived a life of losses. Three of her offsprings died before she journeyed out of this physical world. That is a pain I cannot even conceive. And even with all the sorrow in her heart, while she barely smiled, at least in my childhood memory, she was so full of silent love she kept giving. Everytime I read the poem "My Mother Sang" of Jennifer Rahim, I see abuela Che and the love that as a child, I couldn't see she gave us unconditionally.
Abuela Daniela also faced difficulties that my vacarious imagination will also fall short. She raised her children mainly alone challenging the poverty that was their day to day reality. Papi told us how they lost their recently built house to a hurricane and still with that loss and poor, a new house was built. Every night my father told us, abuela Daniela would prepare the food she would sale the next day to feed her children. The pasteles would be placed in a large tin container which early the next day, before dawn, she would carry on her head and walk to town.
In 1992, when I worked as a teacher in one of the barrios, there were days the old family car would not turn on, and I walked home. It was a 30 minute walk, extremely tired and hungry where my mantra was "Someday I will have a car". But it was less than half of the journey abuela did and I knew that when I arrived home, hot food waited for me as I threw myself on the sofa and did no more- just recover from the day's work. But abuela Daniela walked much more than I, uncertain if all the food would be sold before returning home to her children waiting to be taken care of.
My ancestors those closer to me as my grandmothers and those who walked on Earth centuries ago, faced so many difficulties, some that would seem imposible to overcome, but they did. And while the two years after the end of the pre-pandemic normalcy have been very difficult for me, I have been blessed. Colleagues/ friends have become family, opening their hearts and homes guiding me to find the light and continue my journey while shedding the chains of fear that caused me to lose sight of all the beauty we have even in those difficult days when the pandemic was at its peak.
Today I looked in my saved photos and went to March 13, 2020. There the last photos before our world changed was there as if it had happened a few days ago. It was a beautiful sunny Friday, with clouds that reminded me of William Wordsworth's poem " I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud". That day, I walked alone breathing the urban beauty of murals and the plaza. The Catholic Church, a reminder of our colonial past stands erect untouched by all the natural catastrophies it has lived. I looked at these images but no longer with sadness. They capture a moment to be cherished but not to be frozen lamenting
what no longer is.
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