“Damn it, quit crying kid!”. The toddler had been crying for the past fifteen minutes. The screaming sobs of a young child can rake on one’s nerves, can make one want to just walk out of the house until the outburst is over. On most days the outburst would have been because she had not gotten the treat that she had wanted. More sugar to rot her already rotting teeth.
We had decided to take off for the afternoon. Leave the village, and hit the city for dinner and a movie. We had decided to go spend some cash. We would spend in a few hours, what takes a workingman in this country two days to earn in hard labour. Money he needs to feed his family. We only needed an escape, needed to get out for the afternoon. Perhaps we needed to feel like we were in North America, if only for a few hours.
We needed to tell our mom of our plans before she started to make us our lunch. Day in, day out she cooked and cleaned for us. She had been serving, and loving us like children of her own. Every Monday she waited for her rent checks, and then headed out to the bank, and market place. We probably ate too much, and made her clean more than what she thought necessary. Despite this, she kept loving and serving us, and we keep giving her our rent checks every week.
“Mariana, are you in there?”, I called from across the yard. She’s was the kitchen about to prepare our lunch of tortillas, and green beans covered in fried egg. I got a muffled answer, one that I could not understand. I walked closer to her small kitchen shack made out of laminate and wood, “Marianna?”. My understanding of her answer is again the same…. muffled. My broken Spanish could not put the words together. I peeked my head in the door, and saw her making homemade tomato salsa. None of that bought stuff in her kitchen. None of that canned, or jarred salsa junk filled with MSG and preservatives. One can’t afford to be lazy, and poison themselves when one is poor.
We told her that we are going to the city, that she does not need to cook for us. She put down her knife. She would not look at us. Something was wrong. She looked the other way as she explained that she will make us our fried green beans in egg for supper instead. We caught glimpses of her tears as they slide down her cheeks. The toddler had stopped crying by then. Her mom had went and bought her a treat, a little bag of sugar grape ice. “That was a mistake”, I thought to myself, “You’re just training her to cry until she gets what she wants!”. Like I know all the answers, like I’ve had a child of my own. Like I’ve had my own child be in the same room as me, and scream and cry until you are ready to pull out your hair. I suppose sometimes a mother just gets so sick of it, that she sometimes gives in, if only for a moment of peace and quiet. If only for a minute she can hear herself think.
We hugged her, and tears started to pour down her cheeks. Her own illusion that she had had control over them, is now over. It is always when people ask what is wrong, or gives a caring gesture, that you lose your cool. That is when the sobs escape from that place in between your heart and your stomach. The place you had been desperately trying to keep closed up, and hidden from the world around you.
There is blood on the sleeve of her shirt. Not much, but enough to know what it is. We guide her to a chair and ask her, “What is wrong, what happened?” It is heartbreaking to see her cry. “She hit her in the face”, she sobs, “You should never hit a child in the face, they could lose their teeth... Hurt their eyes... Hurt their minds.” Her daughter had hit her granddaughter in the face in a moment of anger. After telling her several times that day not to go out into the street on her own, she hit her. How do you make a small child listen to your reason, when it can’t understand your reason? “Never hit a child in the face”, she says again, “it’s dangerous”. She cries for her granddaughter.
She loves God and she did not hesitate to turn to prayer for her family. We prayed, and she was calmed. We asked her if she wanted us to stay home, to be there if she needed us. She told us to go, not to worry about her because she is all right. “I am crying for my granddaughter, not myself,” she said. “Sometimes we do things that we hadn’t intended to do when there is anger”, she went on. As she said this, her grandchild is laughing and running around outside the kitchen shack. She had already forgotten that her mother had, just minutes before, hit her in the face. Had caused her pain, and her mouth to bleed. Most small children are like this. They will forgive you, and love you moments after you hurt them. If only age did not bring on bitterness, and resentment. If only a lifetime of getting hit in the mouth did not cause us to become jaded, and cautious. If only a bag of sugar grape ice could make us happy... make us forget our pain.
