intentare-arreglarte

[intentare-arreglarte]

I didn’t cry at my mom’s funeral.

Before you judge me, just know that a lot of people had feelings about it too.

My family took pictures at her funeral. We took pictures standing next to her open casket. I look back at it and thought that was weird. But back then, it was perfectly normal to us. What was weird was how happy I looked. I remember smiling for every picture, and quickly noticing that I was the only one doing that. Once I read the room, I took another picture and this time, I purposely made myself pout… for the camera. It’s not that I wasn’t sad, it’s that I was trying to hide the fact that I was sad.

My mom’s death affected me way more than I let on. And I think her funeral was the first sign of it. I hated when people would tell me “sorry for your loss.” I still hate it. I understand the sentiment but it’s not your fault, you have nothing to apologize for. I almost wish people would not acknowledge it at all. Even now, nearly 18 years later, when I tell someone that my mom died when I was 7, I get uncomfortable when they tell me, “oh I’m sorry.” I guess this is the reason I get weird around deaths. I never know what to say because I don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable like people make me feel.

[intentare-arreglarte]

It was August 19, 2004. Nearly 18 years ago.

We got a phone call shortly after noon. I was playing with barbies on the living room floor as my brother and grandparents watched. When the phone rang, I didn’t think anything of it. But I watched my brother’s face fall… and somehow I just knew.

He put the woman on speaker phone, to hear her better. All I remember is her saying, “your mom died.” My grandparents must’ve seen my brother’s face too because they turned to me and asked me “what is she saying??” I told them in Spanish, “I think she said my mom died but I don’t know.” My grandma let out a gasp, as she quickly turned her head back to face my brother. He hung up the phone and confirmed with us… she did pass away.

I honestly don’t remember what happened next. I really wish I could remember. The fact that I remember the moment that I found out tells me that I should be able to remember what happened next. But I must have buried my trauma deeply into my memory.

The next thing I remember, my brother and I were in our bedroom. I want to say there was already a group of people in our living room but I can’t remember who else was there aside from my grandparents. I heard my dad opening the door, and I quickly popped my head out of the bedroom. In this apartment, the bedroom door was facing directly in front of the front door. The only thing in between was the dining room and the living room. So when my dad walked in, I got a good look at him. The first thing he did was look around quickly, and he stopped as soon as he looked at me, peeking my head from the bedroom. We made eye contact for a split second, before I popped my head back into the room and started crying. That’s all I remember from that day. I don’t remember what the evening looked like, I don’t remember going to sleep, I don’t remember anything else.

[intentare-arreglarte]

When I said the beginning, I didn’t mean like.. the beginning of my life. I guess that makes sense if you assumed that. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that ya’ll don’t want to hear the story of how a baby ruined the life of three human beings. Haha jk that’s a little too cynical.. but you’ll soon realize that that’s how I tend to feel. But anyways, who wants to hear the story of a baby being born? You get it… I am here, I was obviously born at some point right? Okay so moving on… fast forward 7 years later when the story really begins.

I was 7 years old when my mom passed away. First cliché? JK I don’t know… I’m still fairly new to Tumblr but from what I remember, really fucked up and depressed people would use this platform to vent out their emotions. At least that’s how it was in the 2010s. Do they still do that? If they do, that’s why I’m saying, it’s a cliché for some depressed weirdo on this platform to have a super shitty background like mine where a parent dies. Okay now that I over explained myself… let’s move along.

Yes. My mom died when I was 7 years old. She was my everything. Not just because she was my mom… but because she was my best friend. I never felt loved by anyone else like she loved me.

My parents are both immigrants from El Salvador. They arrived to California I don’t know when… in the 80s? And they fell in love. They didn’t come to this country together, they somehow found each other and fell in love. My mom got pregnant with my brother in 1989. They were so certain they were going to have a baby girl.. but they ended up having my brother instead. I honestly don’t think my parents were disappointed in that… I think they probably didn’t know how much they wanted a boy until they got my brother. From our past home videos and pictures, they seemed really happy before I was born. But anyways, my brother was born and years later, they tried again for a girl and got me.

I was born in 1997. You do the math.

It was 1997, “winter” in beautiful Los Angeles, California. I was born during the day. So in case you are wondering, I am an Aquarius sun, Cancer moon, and Cancer rising. I promise I’m not like those people that make astrology their whole personality. This is just in case you were wondering :)

My family lived in Los Angeles, California for a few years until they decided to move us all to Aurora, Colorado. This was in 2002 I want to say. I can’t remember the years too clearly because this was before I was in Kindergarten. I went to Preschool for a week and dropped out because I was a crybaby and didn’t like it. Story for another time. But yeah, we moved to Colorado for not even a year, until my mom realized that she hated it. So we moved back to California where my brother started 8th grade and I started kindergarten. We didn’t go back to our neighborhood in Koreatown (Los Angeles). We ended up moving to North Hollywood. My mom wasn’t sick yet, it took about two years for her to get sick… or at least start showing signs of it.

When I was in kindergarten, my mom was my biggest supporter. There’s only so much a kindergartener could accomplish but she was there to cheer me on through all of it. Perfect attendance award… reading award… all that stupid shit that we reward kids for, I got it. And she was always so proud of me. I can’t remember my dad being supportive. All these years, I wrote my dad off as not being supportive of me back then, but honestly I realized that that’s not fair to him. I don’t remember him being supportive, doesn’t mean he wasn’t. But you know, shit like that can affect you growing up. Feeling like one parent was more supportive than the other. Especially when the supportive parent dies.

Anyways, my mom was everyone else’s mom. Any time I had a field trip, she would always volunteer to chaperone. If we needed help with costumes for the school choir concert, she was there to assist. My mom would randomly bring snacks for our class and everyone loved her for it. I remember she would chop up fruit for us all and deliver it in little plastic cups and forks for us to eat during the day. From what I remember, she would just knock on our classroom door and my teacher would open it up and let her in. My teacher loved her. And when we had class parties, my mom would help plan the whole thing. I can’t stress enough how much my friends loved my mom.

From what I could remember, my dad was the one that dropped me off at school every morning, and my mom would be the one to pick me up. It was always like that. My memory is a little unclear but that’s just how I remember things. In the mornings, I remember listening to the radio as my dad drove to my school. Nothing eventful about those drives. But sometimes when my mom picked me up from school, she would take me to go get ice cream, or buy me a mango from the “elotero” that posted up right outside our school grounds. She did little things like that for me to cheer me up. What I’m saying is… I remember the after-school pick ups more than the morning drop-offs.

In my elementary school, we had a very big courtyard where we had our recess time. After school, they would open up the gates for parents to come into the courtyard and pick kids up. My mom and I had this routine where I would wait for her underneath a tall oak tree in the middle of the courtyard. She told me that if I didn’t immediately see her when I got out of school, to wait for her underneath the oak tree until she arrived. It was nice because it was really shady, it helped during the hot days in California. She was hardly ever late but I felt safe waiting underneath the tree because I knew she would come soon.

One day, she never showed up.

I’ll tell you right away, it’s not because she died here.

I remember this day in elementary school… I believe I was in first grade already. So things don’t get confusing, my kindergarten teacher Ms. Kapprelian was also my first grade teacher. Ms. Kapprelian was the one that loved my mom and was really good friends with her. The day that my mom didn’t show up, was also the day Ms. Kapprelian was absent. We had a substitute teacher that day. I can’t remember the details too much but I remember I pissed her off for whatever reason.

I sat there underneath the oak tree, waiting and waiting. As the courtyard became more empty, I started panicking. I saw kids and parents slowly leave. The elotero man was no longer there. Before I knew it, I was all alone.

Of course I started to cry. I didn’t know what to do. So I sat up from the bench underneath the oak tree and started walking to my home room. To my relief, the substitute teacher was still there. She was surprised to see me when she saw how upset I was. I explained to her that my mom or dad had not come to pick me up today. I’m sure they kept students’ home phone numbers for instances like this. Before I knew it, the sub had my dad on the phone within minutes. I don’t remember she put him on the phone, but I remember she told me that I had to go to our after school day care center. I didn’t even know we had one of those. But somehow, I ended up in a room filled with kids whose parents also forgot about them… or probably just had them in the daycare because they got off of work late and couldn’t pick them up right after school.

My dad ended up coming to get me later. I don’t even remember how he explained himself. So I will tell you my THEORY of what happened. I think this was the first day my mom went to the hospital. So she couldn’t go pick me up. They called my dad from work and he went to the hospital. Everyone forgot about me — which I understand because more important things are going on. So because all of this happened, no one thought about calling my school and giving them a heads up that someone would be late to pick me up.

Soon after, my mom started picking me up from school less and less. Only on days where she felt okay and wasn’t in the hospital. Months later, my maternal grandparents from El Salvador flew in to help around the house. My grandpa would sometimes be the one to pick me up from school on days where my mother was in the hospital.

Being left all alone in an empty courtyard sitting underneath an oak tree… I think that’s where my abandonment issues started. We’ll get to that.

[intentare-arreglarte]

I am a walking cliché, if you couldn’t tell already. The Coldplay username, the Coldplay page name, the Coldplay music… the sad background, the dreary colors. I know. But I’ll try not to be so predictable on here. Let’s call me C. It’s the initial of my first name, and you guessed it… the initial of my favorite band. I had a blog before this one where I talked about an epic love story of mine. I didn’t get to finish it because I couldn’t find it in me to do so. In the middle of me spilling out all my emotions, I found out some really fucked up news. I felt like it was important to write about my epic love story in order to catch you up on where I’m at now. But I’m still in too much pain to write it all out like I was starting to do so with that other blog. But I also feel like it’s important to tell you guys some details so you know who I am… why I’m in so much pain… and why I decided to take my emotions to the anonymous internet world. So here’s what I’ll do… I’ll write whatever I think I can handle. But I don’t want to start with that epic love story. I want to start from the beginning because I am so much more than a heartbreak that some guy left me with.

I’ll start from the very beginning in my next post.