DOÑA LUCÍA Y SU HIJO

About 16 years ago, I started writing a story about a mom and her son and their lives, in a common, middle class neighborhood in Queens, NY. It´s called ´Doña Lucia and her son´.

Why?

Because that is what we writers do. We write about life as we experience it, life as it touches us and changes us and guides us. Personally, I don´t try to fight against it, I just allow it to take its course - as long as it is not something dangerous - of course.😜😜 And then , life happened again and again, and my little story was put aside with a soft, ´one day I´ll finish it´, comment.

Several times I went to find it, and read it, appreciate it. Sometimes, I would add comments, work on it a bit, put a new idea here, another there. But for most of that time, it just waited patiently for me to pick it up again. This could actually become my life project. The one that defines me, or it might not. It doesn´t really matter.

Now that is almost a year of a new life in Japan, I felt the urge to go and retrieve my old friend, and to read slowly and calmly along those pages, reviving memories, laughing a few times, thinking of my mother in many others. Then, I started re-writing it. It naturally came out of me, that need to finally finish it. The last few months I have been doing that. Now, it is almost ready. It just needs a few last touches, that I would not be able to accomplish without my mom´s help. So recently, I decided to call her, tell her what I was doing, and offer to read it to her. She agreed.

That is what we have been doing the last couple of weeks. It has been amazing. She now resides in Houston, TX, where she lives with my sister. Due to the time difference, we usually meet through WhatsApp at about 10 in the morning for me, 8 at night for her. We have decided to have about a half an hour of reading and discussing and feeling and remembering. Page after page, moment after moment. It´s become our trip through time, when we can share and talk about those old memories again. She´s having such a good time. I can tell. This has been a work in progress of which she has always been such an important part. I explained this to her. I really want her to know that this is as much my book as hers. The truth is, there are several moments in the story where the fictional mom tells her son that she will help him with his story. 😂😂 I think it´s been such a fun and magical experience to be able to do this with her. The moments and experiences we lived in Sunnyside were very important to us. I´m sure she feels the same.

The end of the story is near. About 25 more pages and it will be complete. The most wonderful outcome is that she´s still helping me to finish it as we read it together, because she is there with me again. To be able to see her, to be able to show her my expressions, my comments, and then I can see her laughing at the right moment of the story, because we are sharing once again those long ago forgotten moments. Kind of actually seeing them, together, at the time they were created.

Yes, I feel complete. I know my mom feels fulfilled. Together we wrote a story that I know represents us and shows who we really are now, and who we were back then. Thanks mom.

Thanks for reading. Abrazos.

Diego Rojas