Happy Birthday, Mom.

Even though Mamita (my abuela) is no longer with us, I honor you for passing down her incredible love to me and my daughter. 15,209 days could never be enough.

Love,

Q

 

 

 

The other day I learned

that if you’re a woman

you, in a sense, 

were present in 

your maternal grandmother’s womb.

that the egg that would 

eventually host you

rested in the tiny frame 

of your grandmother’s 

fetus—Mom,

you didn’t even need

to know that fact

you embodied it.

 

There’s no knowing Mom 

apart from hers,

my Mamita

so doesn’t it just make sense 

that just as she carried 

and nourished you,

you held me inside your womb

and inside of hers too, in a sense?

In the darkness of her belly 

we swam safe

you tasted the light 

before my eyes ever formed 

rocked in her arms 

I in yours 

Love lives on like that,

it endures.

 

But, Mom,

this is the first year 

without yours,

my Mamita.

If we count the days 

we’ve had, all three of us, together 

beginning in Mamita’s womb,

they are something like 

15,209…

still not enough.

Love yearns like that 

it seeks an undisrupted kind of union.

We’re left hoping 

she’ll visit us in our dreams 

where we’ll drift, grief-free

away with her to sea…

We awake capsized, 

ocean-drenched eyes

sinking ships, yet get up 

and choose to love like she did.

You know, love weathers like that.

Look at us making our homes 

places where strangers become family.

Look at us making a home

even as we’ve lost our own in her.

 

Now I watch you treasure every moment 

with my daughter

emulating your mother,

and like Mamita and I

my baby is very much so yours as mine, 

Like my Mamita with me,

you’ve secured her undying affection.

Love multiplies like that

(grandparents get it)

and funny enough 

she, in a sense, was in your womb too

and I know 15,209 days with you 

won’t be enough 

for her or for me,

but we’ll take today, please 

watch us fill it with as much

hugs and rice and jokes

and unbecomingly loud laughs

as we can.

 

Love is present like that 

and, in a sense, then,

so is Mamita.

Quina Aragon

Quina Aragon

Quina Aragon is an author, editor, and spoken word artist residing in Orlando, FL, with her husband and daughter. Over the past 10+ years, Quina has worked as a digital content writer, copy editor, and book author, covering topics in art, culture, life issues, faith, advocacy, and more. She is the author of the children's book trilogy, Love Made, Love Gave, and Love Can, which poetically retells Scripture's story through a Trinitarian lens of love. She is also the author of Love Has a Story: 100 Meditations on the Enduring Love of God, which invites you to explore God’s love as it has existed and moved throughout (and before) time, and how it intends to transform your own life story. She has helped create projects through her writing, editing, offering creative vision, and/or performing for clients like Christianity Today, Vū Virtual Production Studios, YouVersion Bible App, The Gospel Coalition, The Good Book Company, Harvest House, Bethany House Publishers, Risen Motherhood, Proverbs 31 Ministries, Training Leaders International, and many more.

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