Epistles Submission: Dear Mami

Linda Nieves Powell of Latino Flavored Productions (www.latinoflavored.com) requested submissions for a show she conceived and produced. This show is called Epistle. This is my submission. It was selected to be in the show.

Dear Mami by Evelyn
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Dear Mami:

It is a bright, sunny Sunday morning as I write this letter to you. Yet my heart does not feel bright and sunny today. You are sick. Sick with cancer. I know you are doing your best to be strong and put up a fight but I know you are tired. I am here for you to do everything you need me to do to make you feel better. The same way you took care of me when I was battling cancer is the same way I will take care of you.

You are my idol, my teacher, my example! Everything I learned in this life I learned from you. Yet there is still so much more I need to learn from you. I want to get inside your head and put all your knowledge on a jump drive so that when you are in heaven and I need you, I can access you. I know that right now the last thing you want to do is tell me how to make a sancocho or how to make and old fashioned Dominican cold remedy...but these are some of the things you will take with you when you are gone. I know you don't realize that all your old cooking pots mean so much to me....they have some of your magic in them.

Maybe I can access this magic in the future somehow. Maybe if I make a pot of rice in one of those pots it will taste just like yours. My beans might taste just like yours too if I cooked them in the same pot. AHHHHHHHHH! I am trying to think of how I can hold on to you forever in some way, all the while knowing that I can't. So until the day arrives that you rest your tired body, I will be by your side trying to absorb you, breathing the same air that you do and memorizing your scent, your smile, your look and the feel of your skin against mine, that glint you get in your eyes when you know something I don't. LOL...you can't hide your smugness. Hell...I inherited smug from you. I inherited your humor, your business savvy, your flair for dressing up, I even inherited you evil streak that plays jokes on people. DON'T LEAVE ME! Don't leave me! I was supposed to die first not you. Maybe I will die after and join you in heaven...unless of course one of us goes to hell. LOL.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Sometimes I pretend you are not sick and are not going to die...just so I can feel normal and whole again for a little bit. Every time I think of what is going to happen...I feel a part of me drift away and it leaves a whole a big old motherfucking whole in my heart. Just writing this letter to you is stirring up all the emotions I keep at bay. They are right up close to the surface and anything little things sets them off. I was at an event the other day and I saw an older woman about your age dancing with a younger woman about my age...of course it made me cry, because the realization that I will never dance with you again was right in my face. In that moment I was jealous of everyone whose mother was illness free. Why? Why you? Why me? Why the fuck why? Oh I am so tired, so tired of asking why? I don't know why and knowing why probably won't cure me or your or make either one of us feel better. I love you mom. You know so cuz I tell you every day. I baptize you with a kiss on each cheek and an "I love you" in each ear every day.

Well, Mami, there really is not much more I can say. When you are in heaven, pls watch out for me, and make sure I am safe and if you are not too busy up there....let me know the lottery numbers so I can hit the jackpot.

Your daughter,

Evelyn!