Both Honoring and Rejecting my mother

Attempting to create the space for dichotomy

Over the holidays I received a call from my ama, telling me that mi madrina godmother wanted to see me. Mi madrina? From my baptism? Like when I was a baby? I’m currently 45 years old, I think it’s been at least over 4 decades since I’ve seen her.

This brings up a re-occurring argument/discussion I have with my mom- yes they are blood but I haven’t felt their love or care ever, what am I supposed to do for them now? Now that they’ve led an adult life where they didn’t have to have any responsibility or care for me, now that they are old they want to atone? I don’t know them, I don’t know her.

I recognize this makes me sound cold-hearted, it’s not my intention, it’s a very real way of reckoning feeling so alone for so long.

I agree to pick up my mom and my nina and take them out for lunch-my mother had asked me to host, but at this point this is a stranger. I enjoy her company, she reminds me of my fathers’ relatives and can see their conversational cadence in how she expresses herself. She doesn’t once ask me about myself. She speaks nervously and without pause, at this point I feel like I’m doing a “duty” and simply honoring an elder.

On the drive home, after we drop off my nina, I tell my mom that it was uncomfortable and that I…