Aurora
25 April 2025
Entering the car wash, I cried for no reason other than handsome Gustavo teased me and gave me a wonderful smile. He was just doing his job as was the beautiful lady who guided me in.
Aurora, my Mexican mama, passed away December 2021. Mexico won’t be the same for me, now that she’s gone. When my own tears flow these days, I think of Aurora. Bless her-happy or sad, she could cry at the drop of a hat! She endured much laughter, scorn and teasing from sons, daughters and grandchildren who thought her a weak and silly woman-that she cried for no reason.
Remembering her ready tears, I now wonder if those tears were more a sign of enormous strength and compassion, not weakness. Though advanced in years, Aurora was still able to connect with and express her feelings and pain. Maybe that ability allowed her to continue healing on a spiritual level, because she COULD still freely express her emotions.
I stayed with Aurora and her family the last four times I traveled to Mexico. She spoke not a word of English and I, very little Spanish. Verbal communication with her was tough but we often shared on deeper emotional and physical levels. Once we laid snuggling together on her bed as she watched her afternoon novella. Holding her tiny, brown wrinkled hands, her fingers laced in mine, I always felt tremendous strength flowing in and from her. Though elderly and increasingly decrepit, she was a strong spirit.
On my last trip to Mexico, I carried her eldest son’s ashes home, to be laid to rest. All relatives and friends knew Aurora’s son had passed more than a year previous. With good intentions, all had agreed to keep the news of this son’s death from Aurora. To my regret, I also kept silent on the matter.
During my Mexico birthday party, drunk on tequila, I again sat hand in hand with Aurora. She spoke to me of her confusion and grief. She did not understand her missing son’s continued silence: he had not called, he hadn’t written and he had not come home as he customarily did, every year. She asked me if had I heard from him. Me, the liar, the coward, told her no, I had not, that I didn’t even know him. Only that last part was true. What I did know: at that very moment, the ashes of Aurora’s oldest son lay no more than 30 feet from her that day!
Now that Aurora has passed to the other side, she must certainly know the truth of all that transpired. Surely she now knows that her family members, fellow rancho citizens and myself, all knew of her son’s death and conspired to keep that knowledge from her.
It is said that Woman is the sacred portal for the human spirit entering this earthly realm. The Latin name, Aurora, was the name of the Roman goddess of sunrise whose tears turned into the morning dew. Certainly my adopted Mexican mama was a goddess. She fiercely loved her children and grandchildren and would have gladly borne and raised many more than the 10 children she raised to adulthood. For all the tears she shed, may Aurora have the everlasting grace to forgive us all for our lies, thinking we spared her.
I’m sure Aurora roams my house from time to time, now. Sweet, tough, and strong, maybe Mama Aurora sweeps my floor for something to do, or sits content in the sun next to my sweet-orange tree, Dulce. Maybe she lies next to me in the night, slumbering, dreaming, or whispering of strange things she has seen on the other side of this human veil. Aurora, my Mexican mama, my sister, my fellow human-spirit traveler, is as welcome and loved here in my home as I was in hers.