The Quest of the Mother
My great grandmother Adela Morales
It was the summer in the year 2000. I went back to Mexico to visit the family. Everything was still fairly "normal", Sunday gatherings at my grandparent's home were still in place and all Ortiz family will eat together and spend an afternoon of chatting and music. My grandfather Ricardo was then struggling to stand up from his bed. His eyesight went bad, so when before used to read, now will use his ears to comfort his hunger for data brain which was still as bright as ever. He will play Mexican "Loteria" in the afternoons and will know his cards and the place of the images by memory. He tried to keep a routine, I suppose not to fall into the fear of death approaching. He was afraid of death. When tested in life with illness, the grand, sophisticated clever Doctor, known and respected by society, will be reduced to a child, lost in the vulnerability of being close to the Not Known Land searching for comfort in my grandmother's arms, Bertha Martinez, her second most beloved one, the first one, his mother Adela Morales. I remember well, one of the times he had to go to the hospital because of his heart, I stayed over to take care of him. In the middle of the night, he began calling my grandmother, crying and shaking fearing death. He will say to her: "Bertha, hold my hand, I think I will die... I am afraid... hold my hand, be near me..." It was heart-breaking to hear him, more after having such a solid presence of him placed in memory, someone who gave support and care to so many people in Monterrey. My grandfather lived many years later after that day in the hospital.
In that summer of the year 2000, on that Sunday family gathering before coming back to England, I spent with him the whole afternoon just near him, laying down beside him, telling him jokes and reading to him, talking about themes I knew he used to love, I will call him "mi burundango" (my little monkey) and will blow in his big fat tummy, he will laugh childishly. I was the only granddaughter that dared to call him with a monkey name, at the beginning he hesitated, feeling that perhaps I was not being that respectful, and then he just gave in to the laugh and the game, our age gap shortened and our family status levelled giving us still moments in which two human souls embrace each other in their humanity and experience. It was time to give farewell, I gave him a kiss and a hug and left, when I saw that no one was ready, went back to him and hug him again. Once at the entrance of the house, I told my mother to wait for me, that I needed the toilet and went back to give him another hug. Then once in the car, I felt my heart tearing apart, a real heartache and with tears, I asked my mom to let me go say goodbye one more time to my grandfather. I came out of the car and went to him, lay down by his side and gave him a long silent hug while he embraced me with his bear comforting arms, and then he asked me: Why have you said goodbye so many times? I replied: I just can't let go of you... That was the last time I saw him, a few months later, on the 15th of March 2001 he passed away in my brother's arms.
Once I was able to return to Mexico, I visited my grandmother and sat down to drink a coffee with one of the oldest loyal maids that worked at my grandparent's home and talked about his last days before he passed away. She told me that in the last week of his life he will call his mother, and they will hear him having with her long conversations. When asked, he will say: Can't you see? and he will go on describing a beautiful garden, and the sweetness of having his mother near him.
My grandfather lost his mother when he was 4 years old. During the Mexican Revolution, traveling was not safe and was a need for everyone. One day doing a journey by train, the train got taken by revolutionaries, although my great grandparents survived, they had to walk for hours in the desert, passed thirst and hunger, my great grandmother was pregnant of my grand uncle Raul. This event traumatized her, she never recovered from what happened and a few months after giving birth, she passed away. The pain of the loss of his mother was immense for my grandfather because with it many changes happened in the family shaping for good or for bad, my grandfather's destiny.
In every step my grandfather took, he will search for his mother, his mother was that part of his soul in spiritual questing, his mother was also the shadow of his inner desires expressing in every angle of his life, the arms and the kiss that he tried to find in my grandmother as well. She was the essence of all his movements, and the last call in his voice while embracing death. He will call her asking her to help him die, to teach him, and that soul image that he created throughout his life helped him to pass through the other side eventually.
This poem is a vision and premonition of his destiny and his journey. Like a prophet of his own life, travelling and in the quest of his own soul through the pathways of the unconscious, my grandfather Psalmed his own spiritual journey.
The Quest
If in my wild search my anxiety does not find you
If, when I call you, my cry falls lost at the distance,
If the clinging of the abyss devours your name,
My eyes shall get to know all horizons,
Across all confines, my arm shall be felt
I shall go through the last of the world's spheres
And the universe in its extent shall acknowledge my quest of you.
The laughter, between my lips, shall be suspended;
My eyes, two sharp and steely lanterns,
Through the vast outline of a thousand latitudes,
Shall be stinging throughout all trails;
My ear shall resort alongside all trines
Shuffling chords to hear your voice.
I shall catch the missing note of your song
To forge with it God's music.
My fluttering shall follow your diluted fragrance
Peeking in the shadow your distant glow;
One by one, my soul is gathering your petals,
But many are missing to obtain the flower.
If my burning desire falls terminally ill
And with no compassion fatigue girds at me,
My torch shall be put out; My hand stiffened
Shall be an intense hug on your blue memory ...
Inert, like a broken and sore wing,
I shall fade away through hills and plains
To see if my desperation enshrouds you ...
Ricardo Ortiz
Iniciacion, p.35, 1942
My grandparents Ricardo Ortiz Morales and Bertha Martinez Taboada
