Maria Teresa Davalos

There’s a picture of my mom with two grandchildren on her lap which says everything about her. Her two grandchildren are super cute so they kind of take the spotlight from my mom. But that’s okay. My mom was not about being front and center.

Christmas was her favorite holiday. How she drove me crazy going to packed malls buying stuff for everyone. I kept saying how I want Christmas to be calm and peaceful but Christmas for her was about family (most importantly Jesus of course) and in making those around you feel happy because Christmas made her happy. So on every Christmas Eve, she was like that old guy in the Wizard of Oz pulling levers and what not, making stuff happen. She was the life of the party even though she shunned the camera or attention. She would spend all night making either tamales, pozole or enchiladas and serving the food, making sure everyone had something to eat.

My mom is a woman in love with her family, but almost to a fault; it was her greatest strength and her weakness. She took it very hard when she saw her family get hurt, not just her immediate family but with her siblings too. She was fiercely devoted to her father and constantly trying to reach out to her mother in Mexico, never forgetting to send money and cards for Christmas and birthdays.

Though sensitive, she was tough and stubborn as when she was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure 10 years ago and she didn’t know why she was so tired but kept on, never saying a word how she was feeling. Then, one day she couldn’t hide it and could not get up from bed. Fulfilling her obligations to her two grandchildren (the ones from the picture), she held both of these 6-month year cousins along beside her in bed. I protested, but she said she could not “abandon these children.”

I picture her like a soldier carrying on until his mission is done. It’s a perfect analogy. We are all locked in some battle: those struggles and challenges that living in this world brings. Luckily, she got treatment and 10 years came and went until last year she began to look frail but she was still walking. When her worst fear came to pass and she broke her hip this past February, she felt she was done for. I didn’t want to believe it had to be. Oh sure, my mom must have thought, I was not the one broken up and lying in bed. My mom was now the wounded soldier. She didn’t want help nor was she expecting it. But no, I could not let her slip from my hands, to have her lose all hope in living.

I didn’t appreciate being called the caregiver because it meant to me so bitterly how mom was no longer the independent yet stubborn woman I clashed with now and then. She drove me crazy, but I love this woman. I was always the one getting rid of stuff in the house and she was the one bringing it back in. I could never pass her checkpoint. She’d catch me and start putting things back, just when I thought I got rid of a bagful of useless stuff or clothes. She told me she didn’t like getting rid of things because when she returned to Mexico to visit after she married my dad, someone had thrown away her things.

But her cross became mine and I could tell she did not like it. I was trying, along with my family, to be like Simon the Cyrene who helped Jesus carry his cross. My mom was always the helper, the physically strong one who can open jar pickles and was proud of it. Being strong is very admirable but not so good when you really need help. It’s hard to show vulnerability; it’s a lesson in humility. But even Christ allowed himself to be helped by a mere mortal.

I couldn’t give up on her because she taught me, and my siblings, you don’t forget your family. You help them. So I was like a soldier trying to carry a wounded soldier in the battle. She cared for me, my dad, my siblings and grandchildren with so much love and we, in return, cared for her.

I prayed for a miracle, a full-recovery, for her to be happy again because you don’t give up no matter what, and that anything is possible if God so wills it. But I lost her along the battle. I was already learning slowly that there is a reason for praising God. Before, it never made any sense to me how one can praise God when everything is going so wrong. But I realize He has the Words of Everlasting Life. Like when Jesus preached he was the Bread of Life and some of his other followers could not understand it and they turned away, saying it was too harsh. Jesus the turns to Peter and says, “Will you also leave?” I can picture Peter shrugging because something tells me he doesn’t quite get it entirely but he senses something true in Jesus which he then says, “To whom will we go Lord? You have the words of Everlasting Life.”

Life has meaning, even death, even suffering like Christ on the cross. For what is love without sacrifice? How can joy have meaning without pain? What is joy if you don’t know suffering? You can’t have a high without a low; and just the same, you can’t have a low without a high. To turn away from God is to turn to darkness and wrath; it is to go backward. Like Peter, there is only one way to go and like a soldier you move forward, you move to the light, to Life Everlasting. But most importantly, it’s not the end.

Mother, I miss you so much but thank you for your great example of love, sacrifice and faith but you see it goes on. So pray for your family down here because even most especially now, I won’t forget you. I will still keep praying for you. Only in Jesus I trust you have been brought into Everlasting Life and truly happy again.