Santinha

          

I had this crazy dream yesterday. I dreamed about my mom. It’s been 3 years, three months and 9 days since she left this world. More precisely on February 3^rd, 2011. It seems like it was yesterday when we were at Servidor Publico Hospital waiting for the doctor to examine her and tell us that everything was just fine.  It turned out that it wasn’t.

I was not at the hospital. My sister and my brother were accompanying our mom. I was working when I got the call from my sister. She was crying. I couldn’t understand exactly what was going on. I had to ask her to calm down. Then she said that something was wrong with mom. I left my job and went straight to the hospital.

When I got there the doctor asked to talk to me and to my brother, leaving my sister outside the room. She wanted to talk to us in private because she noticed how desperate my sister was. So we went to an empty room and then she gave the bad news. Mom didn’t make it. A fulminant heart attack took her life away. She said they tried everything to bring her back to life but it was worthless.  She was already gone.

Like they say in Brazil ‘I lost my floor’. Literally. Those words were echoing in my ears. ‘I’m sorry. She didn’t make it.’ ‘We tried everything’. Terrible words to hear. Especially when someone you love is involved.  We knew that that day would come. We had talked about it, my siblings and I. Mom was not feeling well in the last months.  I remember her complaining of short breath when going to the bakery which is not far from her house. I remember her telling us ‘you guys need to get used to it. I am leaving you soon.’  We didn’t want to admit but we knew she was right. She had Chagas. A disease she got when she was a teenager and lived in Bahia.

So the crucial moment had arrived: to tell our little sister that our beloved mom was not among us anymore. I could anticipate what would happen in the next 10 minutes. Despair. Cry. More despair. More cry. It was difficult to control her. She didn’t want to believe that the woman who went to Bahia to adopt her wasn’t breathing anymore.

My mom had special feelings for my little sister. She had tried four times but never got it right. She first had me. Then she gave birth to my brother Anderson. And then she had my brother Eduardo. And at last but not least my brother Ronaldo. She loved us, I can tell you that, but she wanted a girl. She wanted to spend hours dressing her and combing her hair. She wanted a girl friend so they would talk about boys. What my sister should do. What she shouldn’t do. That’s what my mom wanted. And she had it because I remember her combing my sister’s curly hair while she played with a doll. But that’s not the only thing I remember.

I also remember my mom ironing my clothes while I took a shower and got myself ready to work. It felt really good to dress those hot pants and hot shirt. I felt hot. And then she would prepare the coffee and the milk and the bread and the margarine. I remember her making rice and burning it a little bit which was fantastic because I liked the taste of burned rice. Not black burned. Yellow burned. And I remember her telling my brothers “Nobody touches that. That’s Edinho’s”.

My mom used to call me that unless of course she was pissed at me. Then she would call me Edson Brito Reis. Oh boy. When I heard my complete name I knew that I was in big big trouble. But hey, that’s what moms do, right? They love us since day one and for them we will never grow up. We will be their children forever. We will be Edinho, Fabianinha, Fernandinha, Shaninha, Rosaninha, Felipinho, Bruninho, Danilinho, Talitinha, Marininha, Sarinha, Carolzinha and others –inhas and –inhos spread throughout the whole country. And they will use these names no matter how old we are or where we are.

Another particularity we can find only in moms is to think that their children are the cutest ones no matter how ugly we are. I can hear my mom saying “Come here you. Yeah, you. The cutest boy in the whole world.”  And I remember my brother protesting “Hey mom. I thought you said I was the cutest.” And she would say “And you are. Come here you. The cutest boy in the whole world”. That was my mom. That is everybody’s mom. We can be tall or short. Fat or thin. Blonde or brunet. We can have big or small nose. Long straight or short curly hair. Big or tiny eyes. It doesn’t matter because we will always be the cutest boy/girl in the whole world.

This will be the 5^th Mom’s Day without her. I feel sad about it. However, this text is NOT ABOUT SADNESS. No sir. It is quite the contrary. It is about HAPPINESS, because being mom is being happy. Being mom is bringing happiness to other people’s life. And how do I know that? Because I am a mom, of course. No, I am not. I am a father actually. And I think I will never know what it is like to be a mom because being mom is unique. Only a mom knows what a mom feels. Let me try to explain.

I have a friend who happens to be a mom and you can see the sparkles in her tiny eyes every time she talks about her kid. She cannot control herself. She smiles, laughs, cries all at once. And I do believe she would move the Earth for him. She would do anything for him. Gosh, she would die or kill for him if it was necessary. I remember the first time she had to spend almost a   whole day away from him. She was devastated. I could tell just looking at her. “It’s my little prince…” - she said – “My mother said he didn’t want to eat today. What’s gonna be of him without me? What’s gonna be of me without him?”  

Moms are like that. They are always worried about us because they are extremely protective. They are extremely careful when we are taking our first steps because they don’t want us to get hurt. They worry (and cry) at our first day at school. They think about the bullying we might suffer. They worry if the person we are dating is good for us. They wonder if the person will make us happy. As a matter of fact they want to choose our boyfriends and girlfriends. It is like we need their approval. “I don’t know darling. I don’t like this girl. She doesn’t seem trustful.”

Another thing about moms is that they don’t want to show us that they miss us. They want to show us that they don’t care. They want to show us they are strong and can survive without us. However, if you do not go to her house on Sundays at least to say hi they will say “I knew it. He doesn’t love me anymore. I am not important anymore. Now he has another person to cook and iron his clothes for him. Buaaaa…”

Well my dear friends. I don’t know if you believe in angels. I know I do. And for me moms are like angels. They are here to guide us, protect us, advise and punish us when necessary. So please stop doing whatever you are doing and give your angel, your mom a bear hug. Hug her for 5, 10, 15 minutes and don’t let her go. Tell her how much you love her. Tell her how special and important she is in your life. Do this today. Do this now. We don’t know what surprises tomorrow has for us.

Love you mom. Wherever you are!!!