This post originally appeared as an essay in The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 2015.
By Julie Owsik
Ackerman
Antonio had told me
for weeks not to miss the celebration for Our Lady of Guadalupe, but then he
had broken up with me. What to do? In my own Catholic upbringing, we have May
Processions to celebrate Mary in the spring. They involve little children, a
ceremony, a Mass, some punch and cookies afterwards maybe. But during my junior
year of college in Cuernavaca, Mexico, my friends had insisted that the
celebration for La Virgen could not
be missed, broken heart or no.
So, on Dec. 11, I
go with my Mexican friends, who were also Antonio’s cousins, to the
festivities, having no idea what to expect. A party night for Mary? It is chilly
for Cuernavaca, around 55 degrees, and we huddle outside the Guadalupe shrine
closest to my friend Norma’s house. The neighborhood women pass out warm
tropical drinks that tasted like guava. I wait, stomach clenched, and find
myself praying to Mary for help. Help me
to stop loving him. Help me to stop
hurting him, and myself, and my boyfriend from home. I wouldn’t have prayed
to the Mary of my youth about these troubles, but La Virgen, I think she might understand.
Our Lady of
Guadalupe, La Virgen or Virgencita to Mexicans, is the
apparition of Mary when she appeared to an Aztec man named Juan Diego in 1531,
11 years after the arrival of the Spanish in Mexico. She returned to this
humble man four times, asking him to go to the bishop and build a temple in her
honor on the spot where she appeared. She explained, “All those who sincerely
ask my help in their work and in their sorrows will know my Mother’s Heart in
this place.”
Asking an Aztec man
in 1531 to go tell the bishop to build a shrine is kind of like asking an
undocumented immigrant to get a private audience with the governor for a pet
project. But Juan Diego did as the lady asked him. He went to see the bishop,
who asked for a sign that he was telling the truth. So the lady told Juan Diego
to gather up the roses that were blooming, on a hillside where there had never
been flowers, put them in his cape, and not to show anyone but the bishop.
Again, Juan Diego followed instructions, and when he went to the bishop and
opened up his cape, the roses tumbled out revealing the image of the lady. That
image of her still exists, on the same cape, hanging in the cathedral built on
that hillside.
Mary appeared to
Juan Diego as a dark-skinned, dark-haired woman, speaking his native language,
Nahuatl. She doesn’t look otherworldly, angelic, but like a real woman, and she
sounds like the kind of mom everybody wants.
We wait at the
shrine, drinking our punch. I wish mine were spiked with tequila, but no such
luck. Norma knows that Antonio and I have broken up, and though she has no
official position, I know she thinks what everyone seems to think — I should
live in the now, enjoy myself. I hear drums in the distance, then a sound like
a parade approaching. The dancers appear.
They are all young
men, dressed as viejitos, old men and
women, their costumes including demonic-looking masks, raggedy clothes, canes.
They do a simple, traditional dance that came from the village in Guerrero from
which their families originated. Percussion fills the air, but the loudest
sound I hear is my heart, as I watch only my love. It’s obvious who he is,
costumed or not. He and my host brother are the tallest pair by far, and he the
most graceful dancer. The rhythm, the dancing, the night — it’s enough for me
to forget all the reasons we shouldn’t be together.
“You’re
staring,” Norma says, nudging me.
I pull
my eyes away, look at her. “I’m watching the dancers.”
“You’re
watching one dancer.”
I sigh,
don’t bother denying it. Help me,
Virgencita.
“It is well, littlest and dearest of my
daughters. Am I not here who is your Mother?”
After
dancing for a while, the viejitos
remove their masks, greeting friends in the crowd. I want to run, I want to
hide, but what is the point? We share all the same friends. I might as well get
used to this.
“Are you not under my shadow and protection?”
Antonio
approaches, extends his hand in the customary greeting, kisses my cheek. I
think I might crack in half from the pain. I see the same hurt on his face,
which is no consolation. Why did we break up again?
“I’m glad you
came.” He says it so quietly, with such sincerity. It is an arrow in my heart.
I can’t look at him, only nod.
“Hey, cabrón!” one of his buddies shows up
with a flask of tequila — thank God — and offers it to us, pouring it into
small paper cups. The women pass out tamales and more punch, but after a
precious few minutes it is time for the dancers to process on to the next
shrine.
He turns to look at
me. “Will you come with us?” he asks.
“How
long will you dance?”
“All
night.”
And then I see it —
why we have broken up. Because as much as I love being here for this moment,
this is only a moment to me. I am dropping in, passing through, and he is
upholding a tradition passed from one generation to the next.
“Yes,
I’ll be here,” I say. For now. I don’t have to add this part. He knows it. He
kisses my cheek, lingering for only a moment longer than he should. I inhale
his scent, like spring rain, reach up a hand to touch his face, but stop short.
He
returns to the dancers, I return to Norma, hollow as the drums that surround
us.
“Here I will see their tears; I will console
them and they will be at peace.”
I am not
yet at peace, but following the dancers that night processing from shrine to
shrine, I begin to believe in La Virgen.
I lose a boyfriend, but I gain a Mother.
Julie Owsik
Ackerman is finishing a novel based on her experiences studying in Mexico. <julieack@gmail.com>
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