Mothers of the Disappeared
Some years back, many moons ago in what feels like a different lifetime now, I found myself one night roaming down a narrow, well worn cobblestone street in Buenos Aires.?
Ravenous?and parched from the day's adventures, I was in earnest search for a local mom & pop diner to rest my bones and refuel with a plate of delectable homemade pasta and a bottle of Argentina's equally delicious?indigenous?vino that was ubiquitous in this beautiful country, cascading down like liquid manna from Heaven Herself, ready to be found when one was in such a need.?
As luck would have it, I found this quaint, idyllic little spot.?With only a handful of outside seating available, intermittently but thoughtfully?placed, were just a few wrought iron tables and accompanying chairs, each table adorned with a protective umbrella overhead and candles lit appropriately, the flames ablazed and attenuated in their tips, flickering softly in the night.?
I had found my spot for the evening.?
As the night was closing?in, wrapping Her mysteries around me, a soft mist began to drift in from the east.
Within moments, one of the lovely owners of this family restaurant came over to my table, and in my best budding attempts in Spanish at the time, I offered up my order to replenish?and refuel my spirits. She promptly returned with a delicious bottle of one of Mendoza's finest reds and without any hesitation I unceremoniously and admittedly enthusiastically opened that flavoursome wine bottle up. Feeling the moment, I then lit up an equally delectable Nicaraguan hand rolled?cigar to enjoy with an accompanying glass of the vine, just grateful to have a place to rest and recharge my proverbial batteries.?
And while this local eatery was mostly uninhabited that particular night, to my left sat a table of two ladies.?
One of these ladies, elderly and entering the twilight of her life, and in what I was to learn later on in the evening, joining her was her daughter, and both were noticeably distraught in some intense and heart-discouraging conversation.?
Not wanting to pry or eavesdrop, but incapable?of not noticing the raw emotions that were being exchanged, I listened in...
At that moment in time, I understood enough Spanish to grasp that the elderly lady's son had been "missing" for a long time and that despite her efforts for answers, the government was not forthcoming in any details. For during?the time of his "disappearance", her son was an active?member of a growing movement of tens of thousands of youths who actively protested, albeit peacefully, as they voiced their needs to resist the current governmental regime's oppression,?desperate to change the tide for their beloved denizens.?
For speaking his truth, her son was classified as a dangerous revolutionary, a boy who dared to believe that all of his nation's citizens deserve equal pay, equal health care, equal rights, fairness for all, regardless of gender, of religious beliefs or lack thereof, of orientation of any nature.
Just the right to exist as one naturally is.
And for this, deemed by the authorities at the time as a threat to national security, as were thousands of other youths who held solid to such beliefs, he was taken in the night from his home, never to be seen again.?
During this particular darker time in Argentina's history, between 1974 to 1983, tens of thousands of youths were stolen away in the night from their respective homes. Tortured, brutalized, dehumanized in the worst imaginable of ways and never to see the light of day again.
This was to become known as the "Guerra Sucia", the Dirty War.
As this sadden mother intimately shared her story with her daughter, and unknowingly to the stranger sitting quietly to the table adjacent to them both, I was to learn that of the many ways the sons and daughters of Argentina were to be "disappeared", one of the most horrifying methods was these children would be bound and gagged in the middle of the night, flown out over the icy waters of the Southern Atlantic Ocean and bluntly, cruelly tossed out of airplanes only to fall into their watery graves, whispered away...
At this point, I lassoed up my bottle of wine, gently walked over and said to this grieving mother:?
"Discúlpeme, se?ora, y ciertamente no pretendo faltarle el respeto o incomodidad aquí, pero no pude evitar escuchar el eco de la angustia en su voz. Si no le importa, y si no es una intrusión en su corazón, yo humildemente me gustaría saber acerca de su hijo y su historia".
Or in my native English tongue: "Excuse me ma'am, and I certainly mean no disrespect or discomfort here, but I couldn't help but overhear the?heartbreak echoing in your voice. If you don't mind, and if it's not an intrusion into your heart, I humbly would like to listen about your son and his story."
Graciously she offered a chair and for the next few hours, as the night's rainfall would ultimately surcease, she shared the devastation?and vicissitude?of her son's life, all for yearning to change the tide of his country's trajectory.?
At the end of her heartbreaking story, while the rain had long since dissipated, there wasn't a dry eye at that table.?
I share this story with you because in?my humble opinion in order to help ensure we do not repeat the?atrocities of the past, and in order to protect the future that we all collectively share in, we must remember and recognize the past and collectively commit that we must never allow it to be repeated. As young of a species that we are, still evolving I hope in both heart and spirit, it's imperative that we remember our mistakes in order to purposefully take steps so that certain?aspects of our shared history never recur?again.
It is imperative that we remember so together we can write a story, indeed a world, worthy to pass onto our children.
Sadly, almost every country on Earth has a dark and glimmered down period in their respective history. But tantamount to that statement, those same countries, which is to say its denizens, also?have an unquenchable thirst of the heart for equality among all, and what I like to believe, a wholehearted desire that kindness towards one another shall one day become our common denominator, an unshakeable cornerstone, a solid foundation that we can build this House of Humanity upon.?
4o years have since passed from that tenebrous and cheerless moment in Argentina's history.?
I will not employ the word "anniversary" here for the inherently implied good connotations typically associated with that word. Rather in recognition of this tragedy, in remembrance of this unlighted and dark moment in Argentina's time, on this 40 year commemoration of all this world lost, I humbly ask that we pause and acknowledge that while our world can be frightening and outright scary at times, there still exists goodness in us all and that it's up to each of us to try a little harder, both individually and collectively, to appeal to the angels of our higher nature and help one another, to not seek out and spotlight one another's faults but rather our commonality and shared humanity, to be kinder to one another.?
And if by chance you might still be lucky to do so, call your mom today to say "I love you" ~ or better yet, if possible, just give her a hug.
And to that wonderful mother that shared such intimacies of her heart that night so many moons ago with this stranger here,?sharing stories about her beloved son's life, and the swelling pride of her heart that only a mother can know, I humbly say:?
Gracias madre hermosa por compartir una historia tan íntima y las intimidades de tu corazón. Y un día, no hoy, pero un día, descansa tranquila y segura de que volverás a ver a tu hermoso hijo. Hasta entonces, mantén una vela en tu corazón sabiendo que su historia no se pierde en el abismo. Nos recordaremos.
We will remember.
And I quote:?
"Midnight, our sons and daughters
Cut down, taken from us
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat...
In the wind we hear their laughter
In the rain we see their tears
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat."
So glad that you're here.?