my mother caring roses, 2025
My mother was a woman who endured immense violence and repeatedly freed herself—often through sheer defiance. When she was pregnant, her partner attacked her with a knife. That man is still alive somewhere, and he is my brother's father. She had three children—my two brothers and me. She would dress me in the strangest clothes, which I hated. She believed in the costume of femininity and the Bible, though she was clearly not devout. She worked as a hair model, sold chickens, and baked in the streets for the morning crowds at a Colombian bakery.
She loved many men, worked for them, and often adapted herself to them, even adopting their perspectives. She sought the validation she never received from her father—a man who, like many in our lineage, was neither emotionally nor financially present. This pattern echoes through generations, not as personal failure but as a reflection of systemic neglect. Fathers absent, mothers overburdened, families held together by female laborers—and perhaps gay sons.
She fed the entire family, ensured her sisters could go to school, and fiercely protected them. She was mercilessly violent if anyone so much as threatened her children or relatives—emotionally or physically. This was survival in a system where violence often feels like the only agency left. She inherited this trait from her mother, who was equally harsh, demanding, and unrelenting.
With me, she struggled. I was rebellious, starving for her attention while she was overwhelmed, traumatized, and terminally ill with cancer. My brothers played on the street when they were just 11 years old. One day, one of them was shot by another child of the same age—a child they had bullied. My mother wasn’t there to prevent it; she was with my father and me somewhere else. That’s when her ovarian cancer began to grow. It became clear she would die and leave me and my other brother to the care of our aunts.
Her grief was unbearable. She took photos by my brother’s grave, crying for Alejandro. She even once tried to exhume his body. She was deeply depressed, traumatized, and consumed by rage, unable to process it all. I didn’t understand it as a child, but I carry it—her states of being, her fear, her fury. I carry her milk, her DNA, her womb, her cancer.
My father died a few years later from cancer as well. These illnesses were no mere coincidences; they were physical manifestations of overburdened lives and systems too heavy to bear. Why do children in Colombia have guns? Worse, why does the father of such a child have them in his house? The boy who killed my brother died a few years later, too. I often wonder what drove him—what anger made a child kill another child—or if it was all just a horrifying accident, leaving us here in this endless remembering.
My family has lived with revenge, fear, and worry, feeling perpetually isolated. They don’t go out as they wish or dress as they want without fearing attack. To them, Colombia is a perpetual warzone, where violence isn’t just an event but a state of being. Nearly every one of them has experienced violence—emotional, physical, or both. Sometimes, in the name of protection, they offer their lives to their mothers. They reject the idea of having children, of marriage, of men in their homes.
This isn’t just a personal story—it’s systemic. The weight of patriarchy, colonialism, and poverty dictates these choices and experiences. My family lives feminism without ever defining it. They made the radical decision to live without men—not just because of my mother’s experiences but because they fear the violence men bring.
I left Colombia unintentionally, following my father’s wishes. He later encountered violent women who became my stepmothers, embodying a kind of "Snow White drama." Since then, I’ve experienced more physical violence from women than from men and often longed for a man who would protect me, someone with whom I wouldn’t feel isolated or alone. Instead, I’ve found connection in friendships, in sisters, in queer communities, and in the desire to love a femme like me.
On this day, I reflect on the systemic “sickness” that pervades our lives—the patriarchal structures that shape love, binary thinking, and freedom. This isn’t about blaming individuals but about understanding how these forces dictate us. My mother’s story isn’t just hers; it’s the story of countless women shaped by violence and survival.
I carry her fierceness, her protection, her vengeance, and the unknown parts of her that I continue to discover as I grow. I see her in me, and I love her. Luz, I will always remember you, even though I only had you for five years of my life. Today, we together distribute roses—to pain, to fear, to the strength in my vulva that bleeds, feels desire, dysphoria, love, and violence. To all of it. I will learn to love and be loved by someone who sees me as an equal.
