It must have happened around the end of July that year.
‘What’s wrong with you?’, he asked me.
‘Nothing’, I replied with tearful eyes. ‘Come!’, I added, holding on to her like a helpless little child.
‘Don’t be sad’, he told me.
‘It’s not sadness, mom. Nor do I suffer. It’s love.’
I had been remembering that afternoon from many, many years ago. I don’t know. Maybe at that time I was seven or eight years old. I don’t remember well. That afternoon I had a tantrum over a toy. I wanted it. And I got angry with her. I can’t really know if I got very angry or just a little. It would have to be asked of her. It’s been too long ago.
But I do know, because it was engraved in my memory and in my conscience, that that afternoon of that day was one of the days when I treated her the worst. However, I was little, and that tantrum had an effect…
I can still remember, but above all feel; yes, that’s it, I can still feel how badly that selfish and capricious boy made me suffer. But I was her little boy, and she, my mother, bought me the toy.
The thing is that I didn’t really care about the toy anymore, because in that small journey from my house to the village shop, those small and crowded stores that sold all the things people needed, I learned unknowingly to feel miserable.
When we arrived at the store, that toy I had been kicking about was no longer there. Someone had beaten me to it. But I wasn’t going to leave empty-handed… no, not that. Instead, I decided to pick another one…
Forty-odd years later, the image and memory of that doll and its horse still accompany me. In reality, they always have. I can still see it. It was never the toy I was looking for that afternoon. All those small and strange accessories that I had never seen confused me. ‘What is all this?’, I told myself. I had not thrown that tantrum or had that fit for that doll that I didn’t quite know what it was or what all its little things could be for…
But this is exactly the nature of an authentic journey. The journey of life. And that of love. An uncertain nature, always.
That toy found me because that was what I needed.
And my mother was right there, in that cosmic moment, completely willing, prepared, and devoted to being the link between her son’s soul and his destiny, the purpose of his life, which would give meaning to the conscience he was to experience during the years to come.
That afternoon I didn’t know it, but that doll was an explorer.
In fact, that afternoon I became my first explorer.
And in that month of July when I embraced her, it was the last time my mother and I were together.
«But such is life’s uncertainty, and sometimes the answers appear much, much later. They appear, and this is very important, only when you are ready to remember and feel. And don’t worry, someone will let you know.» (Translated from Cuento Sentisciente, page 29).
© 2025 Roberto Arévalo López
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