An Impossible Love
"I don’t think that I could ever truly put into words how much my mom means to me and how much I care about her. I couldn’t do it during our interview, and I can’t do it now, but I think I’m not meant to."
Being a mom is no easy feat. A lot of women become moms by choice, some become moms by accident, and some choose not to become moms at all. My mom believes that the life she lives and being a mom is “the job [she] was employed by God” to do. It was meant to be.
I can recall this one time when I was in elementary school and I didn’t eat the school lunch because I was waiting for snack time after lunch. But snack time never came, and I ended up crying because I was starving and hadn’t eaten since dinner the day before. My mom drove all the way to school to come pick me up with a thermos full of mac and cheese so that I’d have something to eat. She always fulfilled her motherly duties. She did everything.
When I was younger, mom was my whole world.
When I was 13 I hated my mom.
For a long time, we clashed over a lot of things and the beautiful relationship between mother and daughter that we once had practically ceased to exist. It took years for us to build a bond again, and I’m proud to say that we are closer now than ever.
If only I had known those years ago how little I knew about my mom, I’d go back in time and stop us from ever growing apart.
This past month, however, I actually got the chance to know her entire life.
This is her story.
PART 1: ADOLESCENCE
My mom sat next to me at our dining room table. The fireplace was on and providing us much needed warmth, while also making up for the darkness in the room, as the rest of the lights were dimmed. The only sounds that could be heard were the snapping of baby carrots between my teeth and the spoon hitting my mom’s mug as she mixed her organic mushroom coffee.
My mom was born in New York as Pamela Rodriguez on November 27th, 1966 to 22 and 23 year old Puerto Rican parents.
Being the child of immigrants never made my mom feel indifferent or bad, though, because she knew her parents did the best they could. “In those times,” she told me, “being an immigrant was not a hindrance. NY was a melting pot and everyone just worked together. The emphasis that today’s generation has about status and comparison didn’t exist. The only thing that I lived through was the African Apartheid.”
“What was it like growing up in that time?” I asked. “It was great,” she said, “Mom used to dress me up like a doll, we knew everybody in the building, we would play on the first floor, and we would use our imaginations because there was no technology.”
With a smile on her face and a slight laugh my mom recounted to me one of her more “curious” moments where she took her toy workbench’s hammer and hit it against the glass of her fish tank because she wanted to see what would happen if she hit the glass with the hammer. In an almost cinematic moment, the tank cracked and all the fish came flooding out. Of course, she got in trouble, but in order to avoid a more severe punishment she ran and hid under the bed, rolling to different sides until her dad came home.
Her most fond memory from the time was when she would ride a bike and skateboard with her friends from the top of Broadway all the way to Riverside Drive.
And of course, because it was the 60s and 70s, my mom had a crush on Elvis Presley.
The building that my mom grew up in on West 144th Street is one that I also spent many of my own childhood years in, as I was attached to my grandparents by the hip. My grandparents lived in the apartment until 2009 when they moved back to Puerto Rico, and instead of letting it go, they passed it down to my aunt. Up until when it was renovated a year ago, the apartment had the same hardwood floors and charm that it had when my grandma first moved in over 58 years ago. My favorite place in the apartment was my grandma’s bedroom window. It had a fire escape attached and I would often poke my tiny head out to see the city below me and to watch my grandpa as he would come into the building from buying groceries or being with friends. I got the chance to live as my mother once did when she was a kid.
My mom was the oldest of three children. Her younger brother, my uncle, was born one year after her in 1968, and her younger sister, my aunt, was born 17 years after her. Because she was a girl and the oldest, she often felt the weight of too much responsibility as she “had to do it all.” However, she still loved being an older sister and often considers herself a motherly figure because of the role she played in raising her siblings.
The spoon stirs in the coffee cup as my mom takes a bite out of a cinnamon flavored graham-cracker. “Were your parents good parents?” I asked. “Mmm-hm. The best for an abusive environment,” she responded, still stirring her coffee.
She continued: “In those times, nobody ever got diagnosed with mental illness. So my dad had paranoid schizophrenia.” His mental illness would often cause him to lash out against my grandma and even get physically abusive because he struggled with understanding reality. Growing up in this environment caused my mom to start getting sick from her nerves, and she couldn’t hear things like the raising of a voice without shaking, crying, and exhibiting other anxious behaviors.
One thing that I knew from a young age is that my grandpa is not my biological grandfather. He is my mom’s stepfather who my grandma married after she divorced my mom’s father. When my grandma got her divorce my mom was six, and she had no job, but she still had two children to feed. She was volunteering at the daycare my uncle attended, but because it took her a while to find a job she went on welfare as a way of not only having some support, but also stopping the repossession of their furniture and valuables.
My Grandfather's paranoid schizophrenia is a mental illness that my uncle would go on to inherit while he was young. My Grandfather died long before I was born, when my mom was 32, and so while I never grew up seeing the impact of schizophrenia on him, I did still grow up seeing it on my uncle.
Schizophrenia is more common in men than women. Black and POC identifying individuals are 2.4 times more likely to receive a diagnosis of schizophrenia than their white counterparts. Some of the most common symptoms exhibited include hallucinations, depression, delusions, and paranoia (Seeman and Bergkamp).
My uncle is one of the kindest people I know, but he is also someone who has faced a lot of hardships because of his mental illness. He used to fight with my mom when they were younger as if they were “cats and dogs.” Of course, they got along, but when they fought, they “would really fight.”
To me, he was always the kindest man, and he’d often tell stories of when I was a baby and would do things like wrap my fingers around his. However, he also had his bad moments. I’ve seen his outbursts, hallucinations, and practically anything else you could imagine. Yet, if there’s one thing that having an uncle with schizophrenia has taught me, it is compassion and understanding. Yes, he may say and do things that can be seen as rude; yes, he may not make the smartest choices; yes, he is not perfect. But he is still my uncle. This past weekend I went to visit him in the hospital because he was the victim of a stabbing attack, and seeing his condition made me break down in tears.
His mental illness doesn’t excuse his actions, but it does explain them, and the same goes for my grandfather.
“How did you feel when your father died?” I asked my mother. She paused before answering. “He was my dad. I didn’t have any real emotional attachment to him. I started trying to have a relationship with him because he’s my dad, but it’s really difficult because he had mental illness. His reality was not true reality, it’s not the same.”
At this moment, it was so hard for me to know how I should feel about my grandfather. I didn’t know whether to love him or hate him, but then again, it wasn’t my job to. I believe that I didn’t get the chance to meet him for a reason, and regardless of his actions, he is still who he is: my grandfather. And in some regard, I even hold the same aspirations as him. My grandfather was a prominent figure of the NY Democratic Party back in the 70s, and he would often “rub elbows with politicians,” although I one day hope to surpass his prominence.
If he was still alive, the one thing my mom would tell him is that she loves him. She believes in meeting people where they are at, and although he wasn’t the perfect father, she forgives him for what he did because “it’s beyond his control.”
PART 2: TWIN
One thing that I’ve always hated to admit is that my parents and I are very alike. Some people say I’m exactly like my dad, and others say I’m exactly like my mom. And while I don’t even know for sure, the one thing I can say is that being like either is the greatest joy I could have. If 13 year old me heard me saying this now, she’d probably call me crazy, but the truth is, in repairing my relationship with my mom and spending more time with both of my parents, I’ve come to learn that having the traits of the people you love is something to cherish.
In an attempt to try and answer the mystery of similarity, I asked the one question I’ve never had the chance to: “How were you in school?”
With a smile on her face and a slight laugh in her voice my mom confidently replied “you’re my twin.”
My mom graduated high school six months early with honors. There was one time where her teacher had written a compliment on her report card with a red crayon, and whenever she showed it to her job, they always thought she had written it herself because it was written in red.
She often found herself being made fun of in school by her peers, but she never let it bother her because she knew it was out of her control.
When my mom went to college (she attended City College), my grandma also enrolled with her. They had the opportunity to get their bachelor’s and master’s degrees together, but the only downside was that because my grandma's English wasn’t the best, my mom often found herself doing double the work just so that my grandma could achieve her dream. The funny thing, though, is that my great aunt was also enrolled at City College with them. It was like a dynasty of college students, or as my mom said “a unique experience all on its own.”
Following college, my mom ended up becoming a teacher, but that wasn’t her dream. What she really wanted to do was study medicine and become a Pediatrician. “Why didn’t you do what you wanted?” I asked. “There were a lot of things happening in the family and my head wasn’t screwed on right to focus on that. And at that time, to study that you had to really be focused. There was no computers, AI’s, or anything like that, so I took the easy way out.” Picking teaching over medicine is one of her greatest regrets, and if she could go back and stop herself from making that choice she would.
Her first job out of college was as a secretary, and soon after that, she started working at a school in the South Bronx. Although she doesn’t remember much from that time, she does remember one student in particular. “I don’t remember his name but he was the cutest little thing. He used to tell me: “but Maestra, don’t you understand that I become the story! I become the character!” As she told me this, a smile beamed across her face.
PART 3: FAMILY
My parents met in the 90s after my mom’s car was towed and she had to go to the NYPD impound lot in Brooklyn. The lot was attached to a larger NYPD base that my dad just so happened to work in. When he saw my mom he started offering her drinks and anything else just to make her feel comfortable while waiting for her car to arrive.
At this point my mom and I were only about 27 minutes into our interview and she was starting to get impatient.
[My mom] “My coffee’s getting cold; it’s 7:11.”
[Me] “7:11! Let’s go to 7/11 and get slurpees.”
[My mom] “I have work to do and my class starts tomorrow. Lord, I am so behind.”
After an incredibly dramatic gasp from her and an attempt to pick up her work book, I finally spoke.
[Me] “Hey put the book down! So rude, so rude, rude, rude, rude!”
[My mom] “You want to ask all these questions, I don’t understand. What, what is this? Why don’t you interview Mr. Kelly?”
[Me] “Can you stop it, can you stop it! This is about you!”
[My mom] “What about me?”
[Me] “Everything. Everything! Stop! Stop! Stop!”
I exclaimed this last part, with my voice cracking and becoming more high pitched like Jerry Seinfeld’s each time.
Following a brief visit from my dog, Jelly, she was ready to get back on track.
It took my parents about three months to start officially dating after they met. My mom never knew how my grandma felt about him because it just wasn’t the type of thing she spoke to her about. “Did his parents like you?” I asked, although I already knew the answer. “Supposedly in the beginning, but I think then she (my dads mom) thought I was trying to steal her son away from her.”
Regardless of the family drama though, my mom and dad made it work.
My parents had always wanted to have children, which is why my mom describes being a mom as “her job” and something that makes her “happy [and] ecstatic.”
“What about Liza?” I asked.
Liza is my sister. She passed away a long time ago, though, and the only part of her we have left are her ashes, which sit in a vase on my parents dresser.
My mom anxiously tapped her foot and took a pause before answering.
[My mom] “Liza, what do you want to know about Liza?”
[Me] “Was she an IVF baby?”
[My mom] “I think so.”
There’s another long pause before she finally speaks again.
[My mom] “Yes.”
[Me] “How did you feel after she died?”
[My mom] “I was angry.”
[Me] “At who?”
[My mom] “At God. At myself. At the world. For three weeks I laid in bed and I did not eat, or drink, or bathe.”
My parents lost a child. I have no idea what losing a child even feels like, but I know it is quite possibly one of the worst feelings you could have, multiplied by a thousand.
After losing Liza, there was one day when my mom was listening to the radio and a Christian radio station came up. The only thing she could say was “take this pain away from me if you’re real, God.” It wasn’t until my mom found her faith that she finally felt like she could heal from her pain.
On a lighter note, though, my brother was also an IVF baby, but I on the other hand, came as a naturally pleasant surprise. My mom had been incredibly stressed out at work and was going on vacation with my dad and their parents to Puerto Rico for Christmas and New Years. When she went to Puerto Rico she felt like she “forgot about the world” and finally gave herself the chance to relax. My parents were actually planning to start the IVF process once they returned from vacation, but after a night in a beach cabana and a few drinks there I was without any help.
PART 4: SICK?
I was born on September 28th, 2006. What my mom did not know though, was that while she was pregnant with me she also had a brain tumor, and as I grew in her belly, it grew with me.
She would experience incredibly painful headaches because the tumor would press against her cerebral cortex, and was often forced to take medication to stop the pain, which was something she always tried to avoid.
The tumor continued to grow until it finally reached its largest size, which was equivalent to the size of a grapefruit.
Regardless of the headaches and the pain – because my mom did not know she had a tumor until after I was born – she worked “until the last minute.”
“How did you feel when you found out about the tumor?” I asked. “Well, I was shocked. To be honest, I spent most of my pregnancy trying to look for a job so that when I came back from my pregnancy I’d be out of the classroom and in a VP position or Principal’s position.” She replied.
The summer before I was born was one of the hottest, and because of her job search, my mom found herself driving to Queens to attend various workshops. She couldn’t bend her head, and all she felt was a lot of pressure behind her skull.
One thing that she did for all nine months of her pregnancy was prenatal yoga. But, no matter how active she was, as I got bigger, the tumor grew and she got slower and number until eventually the entire left side of her body was numb. Because she was pregnant, the doctors thought that the numbness she was experiencing was simply a side effect of water retention and the pregnancy.
When the numbness didn’t go away my mom resorted to creative methods including acupuncture and personal massages from her OBGYN’s nurse during home visits.
Eventually, the numbness started spreading to the right side of her body. It got so bad that she couldn’t even carry me herself. If she wanted to hold me someone had to place me in her arms. She couldn’t even sleep laying down, but rather sitting up.
A week after I was born, my mom was officially diagnosed with a brain tumor. And yet, even after receiving what should have been some of the most harrowing news of her life, my mom cried because she “had to leave her babies.” She was in complete shock, but her only priority was still us. “I was worried because mom’s going to Puerto Rico. Who was going to take care of Emerson (my brother)? Who was going to take care of Laila?” she told me.
My grandparents had been planning on moving back to Puerto Rico the year that I was born, but following my moms diagnosis they had ended up postponing the move until 2009. My dad also couldn’t take care of us because he had to work in order to support us and my mom.
My mom had always been ambitious, but after her diagnosis, she realized she needed to relax and take a step back. So she dropped all of her dreams and simply allowed herself to realize she had no power over the situation. To her, it was “God’s will.”
The tumor resulted in my mom experiencing increased hypersensitivity. All of her senses were heightened and she could not even touch anything hot or cold because it would burn her.
The removal surgery ended up taking six hours, and after that, it took my mom over five years to recover. She became a quadriplegic; she could not walk; she could not talk; she could not get her body to keep up with her brain; she couldn’t do the basic things that we all take for granted. Because of her condition she often experienced mistreatment from nurses who would throw food in front of her and leave, knowing that she couldn’t feed herself.
“I had a self-determination, where I just thought about you and Emerson and I knew I just had to do it.” she told me. “I was in a place where everybody was sick and I didn’t want you and Emerson to get sick, so I sacrificed not seeing you guys so that you wouldn’t get sick.”
During this time, one of the only things that kept her going (besides my brother and I) was our family. My mom had built strong relationships with many of the doctors, nurses, and hospital staff, so one day they hosted a luncheon in a non-exposed area of the hospital just so that she would be able to see my brother and I.
It took a long time for my mom to recover and be herself again, and while the scar on the back of her neck always serves as a reminder of the tumor, she made it.
In 2021, my mom began to slowly lose her ability to walk, and she was forced to get back surgery. I remember that I was in Puerto Rico visiting my grandparents with my brother when I found out that she was in the hospital for surgery. I came back home a week early, by myself, while my brother stood in Puerto Rico because I knew I had to be there for my mom.
I took on a lot of responsibility in assisting with her recovery at home, but thankfully school was still remote, so while I was stressed out to no end, I didn’t have to worry about leaving for hours on end.
Sometimes when I think about my moms illness I wonder if she would have been as sick if I hadn’t been born. Yet, in her eyes, my being born is what saved her life. Ever since I was little, she always told me that I saved her life because if I never came along, by the time the doctors detected the tumor it would’ve been too late.
My mom is one of the strongest and most resilient people I know. A brain tumor couldn’t keep her down; back surgery couldn’t keep her down; all of the hardships of life couldn’t keep her down. Seeing her in pain is one of the hardest things for me, but I always know she will overcome it. One day I hope to be as strong as her.
PART 5: THE PRESENT DAY
Listening to my mom tell me her story made me realize just how much I can not live without her. The entire time that she was speaking I found myself holding back tears. “You got teary eyed three different times, why?” she asked me, and in an attempt to avoid the question, I asked her for her opinion on Jelly. Ironically, as I write this right now I’m also crying.
I don’t think that I could ever truly put into words how much my mom means to me and how much I care about her. I couldn’t do it during our interview, and I can’t do it now, but I think I’m not meant to. It’s an impossible task. It’s an inexplicable love.
My mom believes that the life she lives and being a mom is “the job [she] was employed by God with.” It was meant to be.
What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned?” I asked to close out our interview. “Clean hands, clean heart” she replied without any hesitation.
I love my mom. I don’t know how else to say it, but I love her.
I love our late night Target runs; I love blasting the BeeGees, Barry White, Wham!, and Barry Manilow in the car with her; I love gossiping with her; I love knitting with her; I love her.
When I was younger, my mom used to always read my brother and I bedtime stories. One of my favorites was called “I Love You Forever.” It is about a mother whose son grows up, but every night she tells him that she will love him forever, until eventually she gets sick and it’s him telling her instead.
I don’t know how much time I have left with my mom, but if there is one thing I do know it’s:
“I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
As long as I’m living
my Mommy you’ll be.”
I love you mom.
Work Cited
Seeman, Mary V., and Jude Bergkamp. “The weaponization of medicine: Early psychosis in the Black community and the need for racially informed mental healthcare.” NCBI, 9 February 2023, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9947477/. Accessed 22 March 2024.