Today was
difficult to say the least. This morning was the meeting of our
Support Group for women who are married to Hispanic men, and it was my turn to
tell the story of us. I had prepared a story, thinking that if I
could detach myself even a little bit I would be able to stay composed. I
minute I looked at the story typed neatly in my hand, I promptly burst into
tears. I told our story through a torrent of tears and emotional
pain that I had no way of controlling. I felt as though I was
exposing my damaged soul for all to see, and for once I was not judged. These
women did not shut off their minds at the mention of undocumented immigration,
or the situation that ultimately caused the dominoes to begin to fall. They
saw me as a survivor of a succession of shattering events. They saw
a family separated, a fatherless child. They saw us, the Mendez
family. The simple kindness I was shown as gone a long way to
restore my faith in people, and I have to thank my case manager for leading me
to this group.
One
of the women brought her son who was only 7 weeks old. He is such a
beautiful little boy with big eyes, and Ashley spent a significant amount of
time kneeling and watching him. Every time I looked over and saw
Ashley, I couldn’t help but think to myself that Ashley was that size when
Alberto left the United States.
Ashley
was 8 weeks old on that unbearable day that we took her Papa to the airport and
said our last goodbyes. Alberto made me promise not to cry, but I
couldn’t stop the tears from flowing after he boarded the plane. It
took an hour to calm myself so that I could drive back to the house and pack up
the clothes to move in with my parents. The wrenching pain I was
experiencing made feeling nearly impossible, and I moved like a robot through
the motions of life for weeks. Unable to cope, I sought professional
help from the psychiatrist and began medication. I stayed that
course for almost a year, feeling little and holding my pain around myself like
a security blanket. Then I stopped taking my prescription because I
couldn’t afford my refill that month. The first week I was besieged
by withdrawal symptoms that were extremely unpleasant. When the
symptoms finally subsided, I was thrown into a frenzy of activity. I
did every single piece of laundry I had neglected, sorted clothing for
donation, cleaned for hours on end, and slept for a total of 12 hours
in an entire week. I vowed I would not take another anti-depressant
for the rest of my life after that. I had been phoning-in as a
mother for almost 9 months at that point and I was not going to risk returning
to that state of being ever again.
I
wish now I had been consistent with writing in a journal so that I would have
written words to reflect upon. I’m hoping that writing in this Blog
will be the journal that I could never keep on paper. Part of the
reason I have difficulty with a written journal is my perfectionist attitude
towards my penmanship. If I write something down and make a mistake,
I am compelled to rewrite the entire note/journal/letter until there are no
errors. This is time consuming and irritating in the extreme, but I
honestly can’t seem to stop the behavior. It was common for me to
hand write several ‘drafts’ of a given project before I would either give up on
the project or find a computer to complete my task. Under the
definition of anal-retentive in the dictionary is a picture of Deza Mendez
surrounded by balled up pieces of paper with a look of exasperation on my face.
On
that thought, I'm going to call it a night although it is actually very early
in the morning to tell the truth. Church tomorrow, and then I intend to
spend most of the day doing absolutely nothing.
Ciao
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