I learned Spanish in school because it was practical, but also because my sister knew it.
No hablo bien, pero hablo. Todavía mis poemas favoritos son cien sonetos de amor.
I read my husband the English translations, long before we married.
In 7th grade I told my mother I was suicidal. I don’t know if she ever told my father. I told no one else, but an essay I wrote in Spanish class was depressing. My Spanish teacher pulled me aside, and asked if I was ok. I told una mentira. I was fine. It was only a story. Just a story. I was sorry I scared her.
I struggled to express my emotions.
Saying them in a language I also struggled with, porque no hablo bien, was easier.
I told my first, and only, girlfriend I loved her with poems I wrote to her in Spanish. Because I could not yet say it in English.
I was not good enough for her.
We do not speak ill of the dead.
My father went on vacation for a few weeks when I was with her and I had left my main job and I was ashamed. I had 2 jobs. I was making nothing and I needed to leave it to search. My father felt I was wrong. I made so little, and knew I had no time to interview if I didn’t leave. Corporate rules don’t apply at $14 an hour. So I worked a few weekends making $10 an hour, fixed up my resume, decompressed for a bit to plan and from start to finish landed 2 new jobs in under a month that both paid more.
I guess where this leads is I paid my bills, my car insurance stayed paid, but when my dad was gone for 3 weeks, I had $20 for food. He left nothing in the fridge. He could have. He thought I was wrong the way I did things. He could have left $40. Or matched my $20. Or just filled the fridge before he left.
I bought some mac and cheese and ramen.
And this wonderful woman, who put herself through college, who I did not treat right, who I could not tell her to her face that I loved her, she fed me a few meals. I was 6 years her senior. I should have been paying for her.
I have wonderful memories of my father, and horrifying ones.
We are built in shades of grey.
And I could say amor long before I could say love.
Hay seguridad en el español.
English isn’t our language anyway.
Gaelic was.
My sister’s story is her own. But she told me whispers of the truth as an adult. I verified it from my father, and my mother, when my father got sick. It is her story, but it is why I went to work for El Árbol – I wanted to help those who helped her. I shared neither my story nor hers.
When I went off the medication there was no coverage for brain rehab.
No IOP for mental illness on my medicaid.
I was alone, once a week with a therapist I paid a sliding scale fee for as I ran out of money.
El me dijo que he spoke Spanish. That my psychiatrist did as well. Yo nunca sabía – and I had seen him for over diez años. His accent was very slight. I had never placed it.
I knew language learning was one of the best things you could do for your brain.
I started with Gaelic on Duolingo.
But it wasn’t familiar.
I switched to Spanish. I spent over a year learning Spanish cada día. Mañana y Noche.
I still don’t speak well. But it helped unscramble me. I got my Duo score to 65. Then I reset it – to start again.
I reached out to El Árbol – to volunteer – I had no job or no money – but I wanted to help if I could.
They interviewed me, offered me a job.
I was the only one who took public transportation. It was not a good place to take public transportation to.
To them, I was an outsider, with a Wharton degree, who maybe wanted to improve my Spanish. I am not sure. I could not share my own pain, or a story that was not mine. La Niña perdida. There is a debt I owe that I can never repay, una verdad que no puedo decir.
But I stand with you. El Arbol de Vida. My father was an imperfect man. I am flawed. My mother is flawed. My sister is flawed. You too, are flawed.
If you ever have me back, I will come.
Though I do not think my Spanish is much better, nor is my cultural knowledge. I will blunder. We are colder people, the Irish.
As damaged as I am, I love my siblings. I may not trust them, I may not believe they always mean me well. We all have trauma. Trust must be earned again.
And I would die, to pay the debt, to help more of the people, who helped her.
Laughs and Lobotomies 