Chapter 1: A little
anamnesis
I remember my semi misfit childhood
perfectly. Parents that constantly argued and many siblings living in a
one-bedroom house (there were six of us).
We passed through a multitude of financial necessity and constantly
received donations from various churches, protestant as well as catholic, which
allowed us to have something to wear as well as to eat. There was a very difficult time in my life in
which my mother used to bring the left over soup from the school she used to
work at for us to eat. Since she only
came home at nights, sometimes we would go throughout the entire day without
anything to give us the nourishment we needed. This tortured my parents.
One day, I found out that the weekly
farmers market nearby our house there would be leftover fruits and vegetables
that the vendors would throw out because they had no way to keep them for the
next day’s sale. I decided to go and
gather whatever was left on the ground. In order to get the most food possible,
I went along in a manic frenzy separating the rotten fruit and vegetables from
the ripe. At the end of the day, I
wasn’t the only person there to grapple for the scraps.
When I arrived back home, it was a
feast with my younger siblings. We had
cassava, part of a watermelon, zucchini and squash. I patiently washed everything and separated
what I could salvage. Afterward, I
whipped up a delicious stew and we ate a lunch fit for kings and queens. We even had a piece of watermelon for
dessert! The best part was that we had enough for supper later on.
When my mom came home and could
smell the food that had been made she asked:
“Wow, looks delicious! Who gave us
all of this?”
Full
of pride I responded:
“I grabbed it at the farmers market,
mom!”
“Grabbed? What do you mean by
“grabbed”? – She already sensed something peculiar about my story.
“Well, one of my friends from school
told me that at the end of the farmers market there is always something good
leftover. So, I went and I snagged as
much as I could.”
I thought she would swell with pride
over what I had done but the look of deception and embarrassment that radiated
from her eyes will be with me forever. She gave me a scolding I will never
forget and forbade me from going back there again.
I’m very sincere in admitting that
during that time I couldn’t understand why she would do that and I was very
angry with my mother because she found nothing prideful in what I had done.
Today, I understand, and I believe she must have suffered a lot as well. To
know that her kids were grabbing “garbage” at the farmers market to feed
themselves and that those who witnessed us doing it would be making all types
of judgments, couldn’t be something easy to swallow.
In short, I decided to be someone in
life, and I promised myself that my kids would never have to do the things I
had done. I studied all of the time and was admitted into an excellent
university without having to take a preparatory course (which is common in
Brazil)[1]. I majored in two
different areas at the same time (back then it was already difficult to major
in one!) and I looked to become as specialized as possible in my
profession. Today, I have a master’s
degree in Dialogic Literature, I am an English Professor, I teach Portuguese to
foreigners, I do translations and consulting as well. Still, I want more. I never want to have to go through what I did
when I was growing up.
Aside from all the difficulty, we
were united in our home and we had, to the extent possible, the care of our
parents and mutual support.
Taking my difficult childhood into
account, it is strange that I have always had the desire to be a mom;
especially if having children meant that they would experience the same things
that I have. I remember one time when I was around eight years old, I turned to
my mom with a pillow underneath my shirt and began to play and pretend that I
was pregnant. “Look mom”! The only thing I heard was my dad’s yell telling me
to stop doing that because I was too young to think about being a mom. I took the pillow from beneath my shirt, but
the idea never left my mind.
My husband had the childhood that
anyone could have asked from God. He had
parents who were always there for him, his brother and his sister as well as an
uncle who constantly pampered them.
Hasn’t it been said that opposites
attract?
[1] In Brazil, it is common to get prepared taking a “preparatory
course” (Curso Pré-Vestibular) before entering a good university due to the
intense competition amongst eligible students looking forward to furthering
their education.
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