Not forgetting where we come from helps us to be more present and to feel more connected to ourselves and to our reality. When I analyze the circumstances my mother had to live through in her childhood, in the post-war period, I realize the privileges I have had, despite the difficulties that have also marked my path.
Our reality conditions who we are: our experiences, our stumbles, and also those that are yet to come. That is why I do not want to lose my identity or forget where I come from. Because, before being who I am today, I was that child from a humble family who often played in the street with broken shoes. And I want to keep remembering her, because in her are my roots, my history, and an essential part of the person I have become.
The image that accompanies this reflection has a very special meaning for me. The girl represents my mother, although her face is mine in a black and white photo from when I was little. Through her, I want to give life to her memories, to the stories she told me, and to a reality that, although it may seem distant, belongs to a generation before mine.
My mother told me that she sometimes traveled by donkey to different places. On one occasion, she even made the journey from Mácher to Femés to visit her grandmother. But there is one story that particularly caught my attention: when, at just eight or nine years old, she used to go from Mácher, specifically from the area where the Yaiza Institute is today, to San Bartolomé to buy sweet potatoes.
Fifty kilos of sweet potatoes! A journey she made between 1954 and 1956, still a child, accompanied by some neighbors. They left very early to travel that road. When I think about it, I can't help but imagine that girl, with all the responsibility she took on at an age when today we think, above all, about playing, learning, and growing up protected.
This story makes me reflect on the enormous social change that has occurred in just one generation. My mother's experiences have little to do with mine, and yet they are part of the same family history. Hearing these experiences in her own voice, as well as the stories that older people tell us, allows us to approach a reality that is not as far away as we sometimes think.
Knowing their daily lives invites us to look at the world we live in in a different way, to understand how much our lives have changed, and to ask ourselves how it is possible that today we have so much and, at the same time, feel that we lack a lot.
I remember something my mother used to tell me, which over time I have learned to see in a different way. When she looked back, she found it hard to believe she had her own car. She had gone from getting around on foot or by donkey to driving her own car, something she would never have imagined. What seems commonplace to us today had been unthinkable for her for a long time.
Her story makes me think of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, and I draw a parallel with A Car of One's Own and the importance that economic independence and autonomy had for the emancipation of women. Because freedom also consists of being able to do things that previously seemed unattainable, of having the possibility to choose, and of discovering that our lives can be different from the ones we knew.
When I think about the path my mother has traveled, I understand that many of the things we take for granted today are, in reality, the result of a profound transformation. What was unimaginable for her is part of normality for me. And perhaps that is why it is so important to look back: to recognize how far we have come, and not to forget that our reality was not always possible for those who came before us.
Her living conditions improved, but that path was not easy. At just nine years old, she had to leave school to work in the fields. A childhood marked by responsibilities and sacrifices that helps me better understand where I come from and to value the opportunities that came later.
Therefore, this image does not only speak of a girl, a donkey, and some sweet potatoes. It speaks of my mother, of her childhood, of her effort, and of everything that one generation was capable of achieving so that the next could live differently. It also speaks of me, of my roots, and of the responsibility to keep that memory alive.
Because knowing where we come from does not mean staying in the past, but rather better understanding who we are and valuing the journey that has brought us here.
In memory of my mother
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