Mari Sánchez Cayuso

Tag: mothers and sons

  • Return Address

    I sit here digitally composing words across a screen
    while somewhere far away
    my son’s handwriting still exists on paper

    creased softly at the folds
    forty-five days old already
    by the time it reached my hands

    And nothing about modern life can compete with that

    Not the blue glow of notifications
    Not the speed of a text arriving mid-thought
    Not the endless stream of people speaking
    without ever truly touching one another

    Because ink carries the body with it

    The pressure of his hand
    The pause between sentences
    The places where he pressed harder
    without realizing emotion had entered the page

    I opened the envelope slowly
    like people used to open news from war
    carefully—reverently
    already afraid of loving it too much

    And somehow this letter lifted my spirit
    in ways nothing else has been able to lately

    For one suspended second
    I forgot distance
    Forgot oceans
    Forgot time zones and deployments
    and the unbearable mathematics of missing someone

    I forgot the years moving forward

    I was no longer standing in my kitchen
    holding paper beneath morning light

    I was simply his mother again
    close enough to hear his voice in the next room
    close enough to believe
    love still travels faster than grief

    And I wanted to archive this feeling somehow

    Fold it carefully into a drawer
    Place it beside kindergarten photographs
    old report cards
    little league schedules
    the backpacks I could never throw away

    As if tenderness could be preserved
    like pressed flowers between heavy pages

    As if a mother could save a moment
    before life carried it off again

    Because the terrible thing about joy
    is how quickly it understands
    it cannot stay

    So I stood there quietly
    holding the letter against my chest
    like something alive

    trying to memorize
    the exact shape of being needed
    the exact sound of my spirit returning to me
    through his handwriting

    And for a moment
    this loud technological world disappeared

    No algorithms
    No scrolling
    No noise

    Only a mother standing silently
    holding proof
    that space and time are not always strong enough
    to keep the heart from returning home

  • Wooden Box

    If I could
    I would place every fear I have for my sons
    inside a small wooden box
    and leave it out in the yard

    I think about that box often

    I imagine it sitting there alone beneath the weather
    the grass growing slowly around it
    rainwater darkening the wood
    August heat opening tiny cracks along the lid

    A plain little box
    holding all the unbearable parts of motherhood

    At first
    the box would have held small things

    Fevers in the middle of the night
    Tiny shoes by the door
    The sound of them crying from another room
    The terrible helplessness of hearing your child cough
    while the whole dark house waits with you

    Back then
    I thought motherhood was about protecting

    I did not yet understand
    that motherhood is mostly about enduring

    ‘Motherhood’

    So the years passed
    and the box grew heavier

    Into it went first heartbreaks
    Late-night drives
    Silences
    The fear that arrives when your children begin
    walking further and further away from your arms

    And now my sons are men

    Men in uniform
    Men standing inside realities
    I cannot soften for them

    ‘Motherhood’

    So now the box holds oceans

    It holds unanswered messages
    It holds the terrible imagination of mothers
    It holds the sound of a phone not ringing
    It holds every silent prayer
    I have whispered into the light

    If I could
    I would leave the box outside forever

    ‘Motherhood’

    I would let rain kneel over it through the night
    Let thunder shake it open
    Let wind carry pieces of my fear away
    through the trees

    I would let winter freeze it stiff
    Let summer split the wood apart slowly
    until the earth itself
    began carrying some of the weight for me

    Because I am tired
    of carrying the box inside my body

    Tired of setting it beside my coffee each morning
    Tired of carrying it room to room invisibly
    while the world continues normally around me

    And still
    when I close my eyes
    the box becomes lighter again

    Inside it

    I find warm little hands clenched in mine
    Their laughter moving through the hallway

    Maybe that is the true shape of motherhood

    a small wooden box
    filled first with tenderness
    then with fear
    then with all the love in the world
    a human being can no longer survive carrying alone

  • To my sons

    When I struggle

    With your absence

    You call me

    My stomach beats

    A thousand marches

    Aches to be so many miles away

    If I had no sight

    I could find you both

    In the greatest of multitudes

    This haptic perception

    Reminds me

    That light

    Is sufficient

    If you dare to see it