I wonder if mami looks at me
and sees the little girl I used to be.
Does it keep her up at night,
how the world got its hands-on
me? Even though so many
of her nights were filled
with silent prayers.
Faith is believing without
seeing, but mami saw how
adulthood stole her kids from her
one by one,
year by year.
Does it remind her of how
she got on a plane years ago
for the first time,
leaving her mother
for a country that was so
unforgiving?
Sometimes I want to ask
“Was it all worth it?”
But I am afraid her
answer will be no.
What if she says
that her faith did not take
her very far and
that if she could
turn back time
she would have
chosen herself first?
What if she says that the tears
and prayers were pointless
and that sometimes loving us
this much meant also hating
us this much too?
What if she says that
giving up her life
for her kids
<<le mató la fe>>?
And now she has nothing
to show for it but calloused red hands,
white hair and a broken spirit.
What if she says that she wishes
her mother would have taught her
that loving could be soft?
What if she says that she wishes
her faith could have been enough
for the both of us?
Glendalee Diaz is a Dominican-American born and raised in New York. She is a former high school English teacher who is currently working on her M.Ed. in Teaching and Learning English. Glendalee self-published a book of poems and prose titled Café con Leche through Amazon Kindle. Although writing is not her full-time occupation, she hopes always to be surrounded by stories.
