ADSactly Fiction: On The Way...
On The Way...
As I was getting dressed, I watched with my tail as my mom picked up all my clothes and put them in a suitcase. I asked her where we were going and she just told me, in her commanding but soft voice, not to ask so many questions, to get dressed quickly. I reminded her that I hadn't done my homework and that teacher Maria would get mad at me. She just told me that she would talk to the teacher and that I would have time to do all the homework. However, I saw that my mom didn't put in any of the notebooks, not even my drawing pad or the pink folder that Grandma had given me for one of my birthdays. I finished dressing in silence and only spoke when I was ready. Mom looked at me straight ahead, ran her hand over my face and just said: let's go, quick. We went outside and Mom locked the door. I wanted to talk to her, to ask her why we were leaving so quickly, but I felt her squeeze my hand tightly, so I kept quiet.
When we got to the terminal, my mom bought two tickets. Then we got on a long yellow bus. Mom put me over to the window and she sat down next to me. Within minutes, I felt the bus start and take a dusty road. I laid my head on my mother's lap and she began to pass my hand silently, straightening my black hair just like hers. As I was still sleepy, I immediately fell asleep. When I woke up, the bus had gone quite far, it was already midday and it was raining. I sat up in silence and saw my mother's eyes for the first time that day: she had cried.
That day my mom told me that when she was little, Grandma had left her at an aunt's house because she had to work to feed her. She said that at first it was difficult, but she later accepted that it was for her own good. She told me that although she was a child at the time, she had to grow up fast and that this made her see things more clearly:
When your grandmother left me, I was like you. Maybe smaller. At first I didn't remember her face, or her hands, or her smell. I just talked to her on the phone and saw her in a picture that aunt had on a shelf of family photos. The photo showed the aunt, a cousin and my mother, smiling, young, happy. I had never seen your grandmother as happy as in that picture, so otherwise I grew up seeing her laugh. To tell you the truth, I never hated her, because I understood the sacrifice she was making by leaving me, but I did have very sad days when she cried a lot. One day I told my aunt that I didn't want to talk to my mom anymore and that from that day on she would no longer be my mother. My aunt kind of told my mom something, because after a month, my mom showed up and more never left.
As my mom told me that, I was very scared, but I didn't dare interrupt her. I remembered the suitcase with my clothes, our house locked, the class books, the homework, grandmother at home. I wanted to cry, foreboding the outcome of that trip. Mom would leave me, abandon me just as her mother had done with her. That's where all the story that she had never told me came from, from that story that I didn't know. The tears began to come out on their own and in a gesture of love and survival, I held on to my mother's arm and as I could, I told her:
_Are you going to leave me? Are you going to abandon me, Mom?
My mother looked into my eyes and touched my hair again, then she made a little caress on my cheek. Without taking her eyes off mine, she said:
_Never. I would never do what my mother did.
After that, we continued the journey more calmly. I was 11 years old and I remember that from that day on Mom and I were inseparable. We went through hunger, sadness, together, but we also lived joy. I never did my teacher Maria's homework, but later on I thought that emotions are a journey full of energy that can take you anywhere and help you grow. At the end of that trip, it stopped raining and we lived many things, but together.
I hope you liked this story. I remind you that you can vote for @adsactly as a witness and join our server in discord. Until the next smile. ;)
Written by: @nancybriti
Click the coin below to join our Discord Server
)
A very powerful story. I think that lots of families in venezuela can relate to that, especially in the last 6 years. So many kids have been left behind because their parents (usually single mothers) had to migrate. Some of them have not sen their parents since. I have cases in my extended family of children who traveled to other countries with their parents and after conflicts there were abandoned.
It's a never-ending story. It takes a lot of courage and determination to do what the main characters of this story did.
I believe that the recent history of Venezuela is full of traces left by its wandering children. Whole families go out, united, ready for anything; but there are also families who go out on a drop by drop basis. Sometimes, the most harmed are the children, the sons, even though the parents say that it is for them that they make the sacrifice of emigrating. It's good to see you here, @hlezama. Greetings and hugs, my friend.
A beautiful story, @nancybriti, no mother should be separated from her children, sometimes circumstances force her to do so, but the mark it leaves on innocent hearts is indelible. In this story, the mother was clear, and according to her life experience, that she should follow the path beside her daughter, always together in good times and bad. Thank you for sharing it @adsactly.
I believe that life is full of important decisions. Sometimes you will make the best decisions, sometimes you won't. I don't know how positive it is to "leave" your children in the care of others while you go to work in another country; what I do know is that it must be very difficult to make that decision. Hugs, friend! ;)
Moving story and very well written, as usually offered in this blog, @nancybriti. Although I don't have a direct experience, I understand that it must be of great affection for a child to leave what is built, even if it is little, and enter in a certain uprooting. Even more so if one is not abandoned, but rather the path is made with the parent and his or her love, this experience can be overcome. You manage to express these feelings in the story told by the girl. Thank you and greetings.
Indeed! There are feelings that you don't need to live to know how heartbreaking and strong they are. The uprooting and abandonment of a parent must be a feeling of orphanhood and rejection that cannot be overcome. Thank you for your comment, @josemalavem.