family, friends, and neighbors throughout Bronxdale and beyond. She took temperatures, gave shots, changed dressings, and called the doctor with any questions she couldn’t answer herself. She grumbled only when people took advantage—“Titi Celina! I need some suppositories for my hemorrhoids!” Perhaps they assumed she could pick up supplies for free at the hospital. The staff there would often help themselves, but my mother wouldn’t dream of it. “Mayo beat me over a three-cent postage stamp!” she would remind us. “You think I’m going to steal a bottle of aspirin or a box of disposable needles, even for you, Sonia?” She hardly had extra money to pay for them, but it scared her to see my needles, reused to the point of bending when I tried to inject myself.
The healing wasn’t limited to physical aches and pains. Some of her best medicine involved listening to people’s troubles, which she could do with full attention and sympathy, while reserving judgment. I remember my mother’s friend Cristina in tears over her son, who was struggling with drugs. That was a common theme, especially with the sons returning from Vietnam. Sometimes, even if there was no useful advice to give, I saw that listening still helped.
There was also John, the Korean War vet, who sat in his wheelchair in front of our building, the only spot of shade in the new projects, where the trees had barely grown. Every day, two neighbors, older men but still strong, would carry his chair down the four steps on their way to work. The kindness left him stranded until they returned, and so John spent his days watching people come and go. My mother always stopped. She’d ask him how he was, whether he’d heard from his family or needed anything. I never had the courage to stop and chat with John when I wasn’t with Mami, but her compassion impressed me, and I would never neglect to smile at him or wave when I passed. The role of confidante to friends has come naturally to me, and I credit the example of my mother, who, left on a park bench, could probably get a tree to tell her its woes.
——
ONE MEMORY OF my mother’s comforting sneaks up on me in the night sometimes. The bedroom I shared with Junior on Watson Avenue, with its one little window, was not just tiny but unbearably hot in summer. We had a little electric fan propped up on a chair, but it didn’t help much. Sometimes I would wake up miserable in the middle of the night, with the pillow and sheets drenched in sweat, my hair dripping wet. Mami would come change the bed, whispering to me quietly in the dark so as not to wake Junior. Then she’d sit beside me with a pot of cold water and a washcloth and sponge me down until I fell asleep. The cool damp was so delicious, and her hands so firmly gentle—expert nurse’s hands, I thought—that a part of me always tried to stay awake, to prolong this blissful taken-care-of feeling just a bit longer.
WHILE MY MOTHER seemed to find new confidence and strength after the loss of my father, Abuelita would never emerge from her
luto
at all. She had always dressed simply, but now it was simply black, as if all color had vanished from her life. The parties were over for good; the dominoes and dancing would exist only as memories. I still went to see her often, especially after she moved to the projects, just a block away from us. But her eyesight was beginning to fail, and she didn’t go out unless it was absolutely necessary. Our visits became more sedate, just the two of us talking, spending time together comfortably. I would bring my homework or read a book while she cooked; it was always quieter at her house.
That year of my father’s death had been incredibly hard on her. Her mother, my
bisabuela
, would die very soon after Papi. Abuelita didn’t even go to Puerto Rico for the funeral, she was so overwhelmed with grief for her son. She never spoke about my father after he died, at least not in my hearing, but my aunts and
The healing wasn’t limited to physical aches and pains. Some of her best medicine involved listening to people’s troubles, which she could do with full attention and sympathy, while reserving judgment. I remember my mother’s friend Cristina in tears over her son, who was struggling with drugs. That was a common theme, especially with the sons returning from Vietnam. Sometimes, even if there was no useful advice to give, I saw that listening still helped.
There was also John, the Korean War vet, who sat in his wheelchair in front of our building, the only spot of shade in the new projects, where the trees had barely grown. Every day, two neighbors, older men but still strong, would carry his chair down the four steps on their way to work. The kindness left him stranded until they returned, and so John spent his days watching people come and go. My mother always stopped. She’d ask him how he was, whether he’d heard from his family or needed anything. I never had the courage to stop and chat with John when I wasn’t with Mami, but her compassion impressed me, and I would never neglect to smile at him or wave when I passed. The role of confidante to friends has come naturally to me, and I credit the example of my mother, who, left on a park bench, could probably get a tree to tell her its woes.
——
ONE MEMORY OF my mother’s comforting sneaks up on me in the night sometimes. The bedroom I shared with Junior on Watson Avenue, with its one little window, was not just tiny but unbearably hot in summer. We had a little electric fan propped up on a chair, but it didn’t help much. Sometimes I would wake up miserable in the middle of the night, with the pillow and sheets drenched in sweat, my hair dripping wet. Mami would come change the bed, whispering to me quietly in the dark so as not to wake Junior. Then she’d sit beside me with a pot of cold water and a washcloth and sponge me down until I fell asleep. The cool damp was so delicious, and her hands so firmly gentle—expert nurse’s hands, I thought—that a part of me always tried to stay awake, to prolong this blissful taken-care-of feeling just a bit longer.
WHILE MY MOTHER seemed to find new confidence and strength after the loss of my father, Abuelita would never emerge from her
luto
at all. She had always dressed simply, but now it was simply black, as if all color had vanished from her life. The parties were over for good; the dominoes and dancing would exist only as memories. I still went to see her often, especially after she moved to the projects, just a block away from us. But her eyesight was beginning to fail, and she didn’t go out unless it was absolutely necessary. Our visits became more sedate, just the two of us talking, spending time together comfortably. I would bring my homework or read a book while she cooked; it was always quieter at her house.
That year of my father’s death had been incredibly hard on her. Her mother, my
bisabuela
, would die very soon after Papi. Abuelita didn’t even go to Puerto Rico for the funeral, she was so overwhelmed with grief for her son. She never spoke about my father after he died, at least not in my hearing, but my aunts and
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