La Llorona

Ah, this is a tragic, tragic tale.

There are a few versions to La Llorona and I will let you search the web for them. I see that there is a movie that links her to the story of La Malinche, for, as we all know, legends take on a life of their own. As it is, I suggest you search out the term yourself and see what you find. I will try to piece it together here in a simplistic way:

Most legends of La Llorona (Weeping Woman) begin with the beauty of a young Mexican woman who catches the attention of a noble man, and in fact, men of both wealth and poverty. Predictably, she becomes the concubine of a wealthy man, possibly a Spaniard, and bears him two sons. Some stories suggest she already had her two sons when she met the nobleman with whom she fell in love.

In any case, the man is tempted either back to Spain or at least to live out a more "noble" calling by marrying a woman of higher privilege...maybe one without children. In some legends, he is a man whom, she believes, hates children and finds them an obstacle. In other legends, he has already fathered children by a noblewoman whom his family has convinced him to marry. In either case, La Llorona, as the scorned woman, is so distraught that she believes that if she is without children she will become the cherished bride she has always desired to be, and so she takes her infants and stabs them in the heart, dropping them into the river where she cries out in distress, "Mis Hijos!"

And still she is rejected by her lover, the death of her children was a vain sacrifice to the altar of convenience and selfishness.

"MIS HIJOS!"

There are other legends that tell a similar tale, but one more tame. In this other version, the sons of La Llorona played by the riverside in the evening while she cavorted with the men who so desired her beauty. And in her neglect, unsupervised, they found themselves without assistance in their boyhood games and, tragically, were drowned.

The final outcome of all the legends has the distraught mother weeping and wailing at the riverside for her lost children. Yet, she isn't crying through innocent loss, but her direct involvement in their deaths, whether through negligence or her own hand.

In the end, she took her own life, and to this day wanders the riverside, weeping and wailing for her lost children, seeking them eternally.

Mexican and American Southwestern folklore has La Llorona seeking her own children, a malevolent spirit wandering the riverbeds, digging in the mud but willing to swipe living children from the hands of other neglectful parents who allow their progeny to wander alone in dangerous areas, especially at twilight where the Xtabay also lingers seeking to devour lost souls.

Pondering La Llorona

I can't ever read this particular folklore without thinking of the reality she lives every day, in the women who so willingly slaughter their children...and in those who stand up and declare the morality of abortion.

When I hear or read the word "abortion", I see and hear La Llorona, weeping and wailing for her lost children.

I remember the laws recently passed in Mexico, and wonder how a culture that has La Llorona and Our Lady of Guadalupe so ingrained within it, which so IDENTIFIES it, can find the abomination of abortion to be compatible so as to be made LEGAL?

I don't understand how on one end so many in Mexico and America can give witness to the Legend of La Llorona and to the pregnant belly of Our Lady Of Guadalupe with the unborn infant Jesus, and how a culture so Matriarchal and so aware of the spectrum and battle for human life can, in the end, adopt the culture of Death.

I don't understand.

Can't the people, EVERYWHERE hear La Llorona crying in agony for her lost children?

Can't we hear the cries of ruptured infants, crying for their mothers, crying for their fathers who would ALLOW such destruction? Can we hear the cries of La Llorona's drowning children?

SHOULD we care for the cries of the selfish Llorona? Or should we leave her to Perdition?

In Jeremiah 31:15 we read:

Thus says the LORD: In Ramah is heard the sound of moaning, of bitter weeping! Rachel mourns her children, she refuses to be consoled because her children are no more.

The Legends of La Llorona reveal her as a woman with unbound hair, a woman of sin, weeping among the banks of Mexican rivers. When I drew my picture of La Llorona, though, I drew her in union with the Blessed Mother, who weeps for all her children.

When I ponder the story, of the woman in sin, I also hear the echoes of Sacred Scripture that point to Redemption.

In the Eighth Station of the Cross, (Luke 23) Jesus meets the weeping women.

"Weep not for Me," He tells them, as He bleeds upon their sandals, and their tears mingle with His blood, "But for your yourselves and for your children."

Our Blessed Mother wept for her Son, whom she gave up to the Cross on our behalf.

Our Lord bade the weeping women to weep NOT for Him, but...but for their own sins and those they inflicted upon their progeny, for if they could not first weep for what they lacked in themselves, how could they ever have children to mourn? Can life come out of death?

At the foot of the Cross, Jesus gave His Mother to us all, and so she weeps not for Him, who is our Savior and hers, but for all, especially those who do not weep for the right reasons. Our Lady wanders among us, crying her tears as she snatches us not to a watery grave, but to the eternal water that means life for eternity, to the ever-flowing blood of the Cross that warrants redemption, for the oil that is the Holy Spirit that empowers her children to bring life, not death, into the world.

My La Llorona shown above with a veil similar to Our Lady's, is also a tragic figure, but one who seeks out those who sacrifice their children on false altars, knowing what it is to allow true sacrifice for ultimate Redemption.

When I look at the La Llorona of folklore, I see the world as it is, a world that refuses Hope. But when I consider her under the mantle of Our Lady, I realize that even La Llorona does not weep in vain, for she is only one of those who meet Jesus as He carries His Cross, and in her weeping, helps to unite us all with our bloody Bridegroom.

Return of the Prodigal

NOTE:  This is a re-post of something I first "published" back in February of 2007.  Today I spoke with the subject of the post, only the second time since the day this was written.  It's not that I didn't mean to keep in touch; it's just that life is always in the way of what's really important.  He and his family have been on my mind so much lately, and today, I finally picked up the phone and called.  This person, my "second Dad" promised to keep in touch, and vowed to also make sure his daughter and I also get in contact again.  Without this family...only God knows what would have happened to me. 

Memoir from a cold snowy day early in February, 2007: 

Yesterday I experienced a miracle, the kind of reunion only God can manufacture, with only His timing. And today, I'm still a puddle of gratitude.

I had to attend a religious conference yesterday (for youth and youth leaders), and arrived before others in my group, so just found a spot and waited. A man came and sat near me, and I did a double-take.

I knew that face. Didn't I? 

A debate in my mind ensued as I considered my options, how to find out who he was without making a complete ass of myself if I was wrong. I could see his name tag, and the name matched, but it could be coincidental. After all these years....

He clearly had not recognized me, so for a moment, I considered just walking away for by then I saw a couple people from my group seating themselves in another area. I wondered why I wanted to run, and then I realized it was my deep sense of shame, IF this was who I thought he was. But I also recognized that if the identity was a match, then this was something orchestrated by God, so I sent up a prayer to help because I didn't have the courage to open the door.

And as you know, reconciliations are God's very dear specialty. I knew that this was a prayer that He would answer.

At the beginning of the conference, they directed us to introduce ourselves to five strangers around us. (I don't mind this kind of thing outside of Mass.)  Perfect. The man turned to me and gave me his first name and the town he was from. It was my hometown, and then, I knew....without a doubt.  I thought my heart would come through my throat and think I might actually have stopped breathing as I walked through the open door. 

I asked him his last name, just to be certain.  He gave it to me, with an odd look on his face, clearly wondering why some strange woman would ask for THAT! 

It was him!

That meant only one thing: that me, being me, well....I knew I had to do something typical of my obnoxious teenage self so that his own memory would be jogged. I knew JUST the thing!

"Dad! Do you remember me?"

He looked at me a moment, attention caught at being called "Dad", and then it dawned on him as he really LOOKED at me.  For the first time in...YEARS.  

I'm crying as I'm writing this...it was such a joyful reunion. There were some people from his town near us, and during a break and some small group sessions with them, he was telling them about our reunion, exclaiming, "She used to live in our house!"

Later when he joined my group for lunch, he told me co-workers and catechists who were at the same table, with tears in his eyes, "Thanks for hiring her...if you hadn't, I wouldn't have seen my little girl again."

You may be asking yourself right now who this man was in my life, for my regular readers realize that my Dad passed away 14 years ago. So no, he wasn't really my Dad. Not by blood.

This man's daughter was my best friend in Jr. High and High School. We actually attended different schools, but outside of those walls, we were inseparable. And when my Mom suffered the most from her bipolar and was hospitalized, I stayed with them. Senior year, when I had to get out of the house because Mom was out of control, it was to their home that I fled. They were my second family.  

They were my ONLY place of refuge, the ONLY place I could go in a moment's notice. 

I would have been lost without them.

I've also since learned that they paid our rent for a few months when Mom was finally hospitalized and then sent to a half-way house, giving us time to get moved out when we all realized Mom would not be moving back there.

When I left my hometown, I literally fled, and only saw my "adopted" family a couple times in college. I did see my friend back in 2000 at one point, but as our lives diverged, so did our friendship. And I've always felt guilty for not keeping in touch.  Yes, there were times, and I still remember our last phone call sometime in 2001.  The friendship was...dead. We were nothing but acquaintances anymore. 

I think it was because I have been so ashamed. When I left town, I had big dreams, like any kid, and when I finally had my chance, I flopped. Because my entire identity was built on the sandcastle of a failed career, I think I associated the love I'd always received from others as connected to what I could do...not who I really was.

For years, I have wanted to get in touch with these families that helped us through our years of horror, but I haven't been able to bring myself to just write a letter out of the blue, or even call. Maybe they'd forgotten me...I didn't know. Maybe they were glad I was gone. I didn't know. Maybe they'd be angry that I'd "forgotten" them. I didn't know. Now it's been more than fifteen years since I last saw him...and now, I know that all my fears were just ghosts.

Yesterday, God brought me face to face with my past and laid all my doubts to rest. And I could finally thank my "second dad" for what he did for me so many years ago.

I am the prodigal daughter, finally reunited with one of the people who helped me to be who I am today.

Thank you, Jesus.

*

Author's note:  A few days after I composed this post, I wrote a follow-up detailing how this family came to harbor me as a teenager, and what they must have suffered. And I share a portion of their side of the story. Even when we think God has only used others to serve us, we learn that in some way...we were serving them as well.  God doesn't waste ANYTHING. 

Prodigal

Some time ago, I alluded to STILL being the Prodigal Daughter, and it seems I may still be there. I have not heard anything from my interview of last week, so I fear that I am out of the running and eliminated from further consideration. So be it...God has a plan and if this isn't my place, then I submit to His will.

But I cannot help but be frustrated by the bars of the prison that surrounds me.

I see my current position to be a culmination of the rebellion I began in earnest so long ago. Most teenagers rebel by simple disobedience (just like in the Garden of Eden!), most teenagers just go through a lot of angst and do typical teenage things. I was never like other kids. I was a good student, I worked hard, I kept my focus, and even when I ran away from home to find refuge from our chaotic home, I ran to a family I knew, and continued going to school and going to work. I was the responsible daughter...by appearance.

My rebellion was much deeper. My rebellion was more insipient because it was subtle and took on the tones of responsibility, even as I cast away my "inheritance."

I was always an artist, I was always active in Church, I was the writer, the musician, the thinker, the scholar. Mom was so proud of me.

And then I threw it away, little by little, by degrees. I would have been a good teacher; I was told so by many. I had gifts I was encouraged to use and pursue. But I decided I was going to do something totally different; I was going to be a cop.

I found that such an endeavor meant (to me) the rejection of my natural gifts for they had no place in my new worldview. I had to overcome what seemed like weakness (and anything Mom liked was weakness), and adopt things that were "difficult." I was not a natural athlete as far as I knew, so I worked to overcome that...and succeeded much more easily than expected. I needed to develop a thick skin, to overcome my natural sensitivity. Slowly I took on the trait of cynacism, even wrote a story about it freshman year...I may post it one day. (It's fiction). It was actually the last bit of fiction I wrote for years.

Slowly, I shed the remnants of my true nature in order to take on a persona that did not fit me. I wandered through law enforcement jobs, through firefighting, and finally all that training and experience culminated in my current position in which I'm using much of it, but the position has morphed and all I'm dealing with is numbers and mathematical absolutes. My worst subject. I have been in a hell of my own making for the last 5 years.

Slowly, as I reverted, my original gifts have been brought to the forefront and I have begun taking them up again. I have asked for them to come back. I have been asking to be released from this prison.

I have found myself to be in a place in which I am now rejecting the education I am still trying to pay for, the experience I literally gave a piece of myself to obtain, the blood, sweat and tears...all of it, in favor of what I should never have left behind.

It is all so dusty, it is even foreign in some ways, but in a reminiscent way that is comforting. I have been coming before the Father, rehearsing and asking Him to take me back, release me from this prison, and restore me even as a servant because there I could at least have access to what I was first given, even if the full benefits are no longer there.

The Father has not answered yet, and perhaps it is because I am still rehearsing. While the true rebellion is over, I sense I have something else to do, something else to request, some better way to approach the Throne of Mercy. I am the Prodigal, and the Father is in sight, and He is welcoming me...but I haven't yet reached him. I am still missing a big piece of my own coversion, but I can't quite figure out what it is.

In my rebellion, I fell so far and squandered what little I had, and I still squander what has been given to me for the present. I have fallen, and I have lost my dignity, and I can't seem to really take it up again.

I am coming before God, begging forgiveness, asking that the dignity I so rejected be restored to me. I am asking that my punishment come to an end. I formally reject the rebellion I began and ask to start anew.



Please, God, give me another chance. Let me start over.

Please.

I can't do this anymore. I'm not fit to be called your daughter.

I am the Prodigal Daughter, and all I want is to find my way home.