Community As The Mother
Ancestral Mother Part Three
Pod 3 (
and ) has created this collaborative article as a call to action for all of us: to ask the question where is the Mother in me?We need Mother energy more than ever. How do we all embody that in our lives and our world? Mothering self, Mothering children, Mothering the world.
I remember being a young child and feeling a special connection to babies and kids younger than me. I have always been quick to want to cradle a crying baby, make funny faces at the baby staring at me in the bus, or volunteer at the opportunity to mentor and guide those younger than me. Even though I am not yet a mother myself, I believe I have learned so much about what it means to be a Mother from the world and the people around me.
I grew up in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with my single mother and 2 older brothers before we moved to California when I was 7. I have fond memories of growing up watching my mother nurture and care for me and my siblings and trust her lady friends and neighbors to do the same for us. I saw just how protective my mother and her friends were when it came to us kids in the neighborhood, we all looked out for one another. It was normal for neighbors and friends to help care for us when my Mother was at work and didn’t have a sitter. This was my first experience of having a community love and nurture me as a child aside from my mother. Although moving to the United States was a big culture shock for the first few years, my mother always found her way towards loving communities of other caring mothers doing their best to support one another through each trial and tribulation.
Being that I was the youngest, the only girl, and a surviving twin, my mom always protected and cared for me as if I were a fragile little flower. I did everything with her and she often called me her “chicle” (gum) to emphasize how I never left her side. As I watch the only video I have of her alive with me, I see just how intertwined my young soul was to hers at that time as I hug her and appear to want to become one with her through my embrace. The same embrace she often held me in as we cuddled and she sang me to sleep.
Despite the many hardships she experienced as a single undocumented mother in a new country, she was the most hopeful, joyful, kind woman I knew. She also was the first to teach me what it looked to be unapologetically herself, her whole untamed colorful self defying a widely Machista culture throughout her existence. She taught me that you could wake up to tea and a book, go to work, play with your children after school, and find the time and energy to then go out dancing with your friends wearing high heels and red lipstick. A true Chingona in my eyes, then and now.
Losing her at 12 years old left me with a void I quickly realized would never be filled again. My mother. Irreplaceable. She demonstrated pure love to those around her, to life, and to this world. It was no surprise that both funeral ceremonies held in the US and in Mexico were full of people who had been deeply touched by their relationship with my mother, in all the different chapters of her life. She really was one of a kind, especially for her time. She believed in a better world, a more just world, a more free world - for women, for the poor, for the most oppressed. She was fearless in her belief to share her views and connect with those who could dream of a brighter future, for themselves and for their children.
As an adult woman, I can still feel her spirit guiding and holding me through my own life journey. As I deepen in my relationship to myself, to Mother Earth, to humankind and our humanity, I keep coming back to my mother’s spirit to give me strength and wisdom. To remind me what it means to be a strong, passionate, nurturing woman in this world. To remind me what it means to love in ACTION.
I think of how sacred my relationship with my mother still is beyond her lifetime, and I think of the children losing their mothers from one second to another in Rafah. I think of the mothers having to watch their children starve to death, in Congo, Sudan, and Palestine. I think of the children being dug up from the rubble. I think of how they also have mothers who love them as much as my mother loves me. I remember the grief that I witnessed my mother feel when sitting with the loss of my twin sister. With the shift of a thought, I am taken back to the memory of the soul-wrenching screech I let out into the Arizona desert as I learned that my mother “didn’t make it” after a traumatic car accident. I am reminded once again of what it feels like to suddenly lose sight of a secure and safe future with my mother, my caregiver, my best friend, my world. To not only have to process what it means for someone to “die”, but also realize that this is happening to YOU and YOUR family. My experience taught me that tragedy and loss can happen to any of us, no matter how good of a person you may be, no matter how old or young you are, no matter if you have children or are a child, we never know what destiny awaits us. Which means that we all share the mutual experience of grief, loss, despair, love and devastation.
I do know the pain of losing a mother, and I witnessed my mother’s pain of losing a child. I chose a career as a social worker with the hopes of making a difference in the lives of other children and families who need support and genuine care while navigating the layered barriers that we face in this country. I love being a Tia and feeling the love from my nieces and nephews as soon as they see me. I remember the first women I met when going to Xai-Xai Mozambique with Habitat for Humanity and how the village referred to them as the “Mamas” because they all cared for each other’s children equally as everyone’s mama. I saw how they shared meals together and gathered the children to return home from playing at the end of our days. I think of the women in Bangalore, India as I volunteered with them doing shifts at the community daycare to allow for other mothers to maintain a job to help care for their children independently. They shared their dreams and hopes with me to one day get out of “the slums” and be able to provide a safer and healthier life for them and their children. I have seen firsthand the sacred power that Mothers can have when they come together to support one another and care for their children as one community. To care for others' children as one’s own.
Although I do believe my experiences give me a close proximity to empathizing with children, grief, and loss, I don’t think it should take personal experience to be able to empathize with a crying baby who just lost his limbs along with his entire family due to an airstrike targeting their home. I don’t think it should take for us to see our kids in theirs to feel sad and disturbed. I don’t think ANY child should go without food or basic needs because of a man-made famine and arms deals. Just like I believe it is time we honor Mother Earth as the sacred Mother of all life in order to continue to have life, it is time we ALL search for the Mother in us to speak up and ACT in solidarity for the children of our world. Not only those in our immediate families, but for any child in need of love, care, and protection. As the “adults”, the women, the Mothers, we have a duty to use our sacred rage to support the collective efforts of ensuring all children have a right to live a life of peace, a life of joy, a life of freedom.
I truly believe all of the world’s children are our children and it’s time for us all to act like it through our actions and not just empty words.
We would like to introduce you to Dr. Youssef Ashour from Gaza - Khan Yunis (Palestine).
He writes:
“We are now staying in a tent somewhere in Rafah in completely inhumane conditions, where the food has run out, there is no electricity, no water, no toilet, the weather is cold and rainy, there is bombing and terror, and we are waiting for death at every moment. .
We enter the fourth month of hell, terror and fear. This genocide has gone on for too long, and our mental health and lives are in constant danger. We truly cannot take any more (I cannot describe enough what I have been dealing with every day in the hospitals for the past 92 days. We have reached a point where there is no longer any hope for us here in Gaza, and we are sadly waiting for our turn to die. .) Even if a ceasefire is established, it will not be possible to quickly repair the damage in Gaza.”
They are trying to evacuate his elderly parents, himself and his wife, his four sisters and their husbands, as well as the 10 children between them all. We are asking that you consider donating to their GoFundMe and, even if that is not an option, sharing their story and information everywhere you can.
We found Dr Youssef Ashour through Operation Olive Branches ongoing list of vetted and verified families trying to save their lives.
Beautiful, Elian. And it’s clear your mother’s spirit lives on in the flesh through you. 💕