Unforgettable Bonds: The Legacy of a Mother’s Song
Celebrating ‘El Día de la Madre’
“No me vayas a olvidar. . .”
“Do not forget me. . .”
The Spanish ballad’s loving mandate lilts from our notebook-sized, black and silver transistor radio leaning on the kitchen windowsill. The song’s moving notes float up on a wintry afternoon in 1972, as easily as warm air rising, and on to our crumbling yellow plaster kitchen walls.
The notes land on a large textile of Jesucristo at the Last Supper with his twelve disciples, all dressed in long ecru linen togas. Their sandal-strapped toes stick out from under the table. Papi nailed the textile there, along with a few extra asbestos gray tiles to cover a large burnt-out hole as tall and wide as Santa Cló, Santa Claus —remnants of last year’s fuego, fire.
“Aunque esté lejos de ti. . .”
“Although I am far from you. . .”
You sing along, while I sit two rooms away, in our cold, heatless sala, wrapped in my navy-blue winter parka. With the hood over my head and gray woolen gloves on, I work on my tarea, homework. It’s the multiplication…
