Soap in my eyes

“Remember that time you got soap in your eyes, and you couldn’t stop crying, Mommy?” Javier asks me from time to time. “Yeah, Mommy, that’s why you can never get that kind of soap in your face, because when it gets into your eyes, it hurts SO bad that even mommies cry,” adds Dominic.

You would have turned 26 years old today. I think about you all the time. I see pictures and posts from your friends, and I see how they’re growing up, faces gradually aging in all the best ways… losing the rest of their childlike features and gaining the fine lines that come with growth, knowledge, wisdom, experience, and years gone by. Even though you feel awfully grown up when you’re 19, 20, 21… later, when you’re in your 40’s, you look back and think, “we were still just babies!” You really had the whole world in front of you, overflowing with endless possibilities. I remember so well the conflicting feelings I had about loving everything about you, your happy energy, your determination, your dreams… your boundless potential. And those things were also the reason we would only have you with us temporarily - because college and a career and marriage and family were calling for you… all in due time, though. 
The first day you got here, I was both thrilled that you were so wonderful and sad that one day you would leave us. A new mom’s biggest, most all-consuming worries lie with entrusting the wellbeing of her babies with someone else.  I had always imagined myself as a stay-at-home mom. Jose and I had even talked from early on that I planned to stay home those first years. When circumstances were such that it wasn’t a possibility, it felt utterly impossible to me to leave them with anyone. And yet we did. And I eventually realized that there were others out there who could love your kids well enough to give you peace of mind even if your first choice would be to be there yourself. We had someone help us care for the twins in our home when I returned to work, and when Adrian arrived, we had another gal for a few months until we could decide on the au pair option. We cared and still care for both of those ladies; they forever left their imprints here, and the gratitude we feel for the love they showed our baby boys is infinite. But… it was time for change. And we decided to go ahead and take that leap…
I remember like it just happened… the first moment I saw your face on Skype. Your nephew, Paulo, was little and in and out of view of the camera, and I could see right away that you loved him and he you. I had read everything you’d written about the reason you wanted to be an au pair, the kind of person you saw yourself as being, and the kind of family you were hoping to find. Before I actually talked to you face to face, I knew that everything about your profile was a winner to me. But we had read a lot of profiles and interviewed a lot of potential au pairs on Skype only to realize that, beyond the printed words on the screen, the appeal was lost. People can write about wonderful characters, and maybe they see themselves in that way or maybe it’s who they want to be. In you, we found someone who knew herself and had described the very person I sat across from behind my keyboard. How refreshing was that… and with it, I felt an instant trust in you that you were genuine and loving and could be the perfect match for our family. But would you love us back? Were we what YOU were looking for? I hoped so. I wanted us to make you happy too.
You arrived at DFW, and I picked you up holding a sign so you’d know it was me. Sometimes people look different in person than behind a laptop screen, but neither of us had a problem finding each other. On the way home, we talked about your flight, your favorite things, music - I told you we didn’t play a lot of your beloved Banda in our house… lol. I loved your nervous laugh, the deep dimples in your cheeks, and I was fascinated by your golden-flecked eyes. You were warm and open. You were 19 years old, you would be turning 20 years old soon, and you were going to be taking care of my twin boys who were not even 2 years old yet and my 4 month old boy. That’s a lot even for parents to manage. I wondered if such a young person could handle all the responsibilities. But you did, and you did it brilliantly. The boys were happy, they were always making creative things, playing fun games, learning new songs, and posing for lots and lots of pictures. And if all that wasn’t enough, you helped bring an order to our lives that we otherwise couldn’t seem to maintain on our own once the boys had come along. And anyone who knows me pre-baby knows that I am a Type A, everything has its place, everything needs to be in order, sort of person. Post-baby, I could only dream of keeping up. I’d come home to an empty sink, clean counter tops, clean, happy babies, an organized craft drawer and book shelves, and lots of love and laughter in the air. Sometimes, even now, I’ll be sitting in my office at the front of the house, and I almost think I can still hear your loud, loving, jovial voice saying, “Que guapooooooo!” while one of the boys shows you their latest costume creation. 
You missed your mom. So much. There were times in the beginning when you used up all of your smiles and laughter around us and then retreated to your room to allow yourself time to feel your sadness over your homesick heart. You talked to your mom, niece, nephew, friends, etc. on Skype, and I tried to remember to hug you often to give you some of the maternal attention I knew you missed. You spoke often of your mom, your sisters, your dad and your best friend CuCu… I often waved at them while preparing dinner while you guys chatted away in the kitchen via your laptop. It was truly a wonderful time for us. There was happiness, and harmony; you calmed the parts of me that were prone to overwhelmedness with a full time job, 3 little boys, and a home to take care of. You and Jose talked about your favorite recipes, and you both liked to impress the other with your homemade Mexican dishes. You were close in age to Veronica and to our boys’ nurse (“Roop” to them,Ruth to you), and I loved seeing you develop relationships that would give you roots here and fill some of the gap between what you missed back home in Hermosillo and the new journey you had chosen for yourself here. Not everything was perfect for you, but you had the most positive outlook and the most open heart, and those things carried you through your first Christmas away from your family and the sadness you felt not being able to hug and play with your niece and nephew every day.
I loved the pictures and text messages you would send me throughout the day, every day. I felt like I was there even though I wasn’t, and you seemed to just know that if I was missing something in person that I should see it anyway. I loved you for it. I loved you more and more each day. You were never just an au pair to our family. You were family. You had a real mom and dad and sisters that you belonged to. But you were also mine in some way that I still can’t articulate. 
You were taken away 4 years and 2 months ago by the person who was suppose to love you, the person you met when you were here in Dallas, the person who had spent many hours in my house with you and our family during holidays, dinners, and game nights, the person we were all embracing because YOU loved him… and my heart shattered into a million pieces. I remember the phone call, but the memory of the words I heard are a jumbled, hazy, mess. I was confused, and then I was sobbing on my knees. I remember trying to breathe and stifle my cries because Jose was in the bathroom helping the older 3 brush their teeth, while I had just gotten 1 month old Santiago to sleep in my arms. I felt and thought so many things all at once, that it’s difficult to even sort them out and write about them here. I found myself immediately trying to trace back to the last time we had spoken, emailed or texted each other, and I realized at some point to my horror that in the month after Santi’s birth, we had just exchanged comments on Facebook a few times under a picture of the boys. Guilt over that nearly drowned me for the first couple years, and even now it is my biggest regret. Time moves so quickly, and, even though we know we must always reach out to those we love and stay close, sometimes things happen that swoop us up into the fray and we lose track of time. You had just died a horrible death, and, while I couldn’t stop my mind from thinking of the distress you must have felt going through that alone with no one to help you, I also couldn’t believe that I had not recently phone you to say I love you. With time, I know you weren’t thinking of that and you know you were loved. But I still wish we could have had one really long conversation before you left this earth and that it might have occurred to me to tell you everything I would tell you if I could see you one more time today.
As often as I think of you, I think of your mom, your dad, your sisters, your niece and nephew, your many, many friends… The ones who had you for many years longer than we did. How engulfing must this loss have been on them? As much as it continues to pull at my heart, how many millions more times is that weight for them? I remember in the days, weeks, and months after your life was taken I just would not have the will to even get out of the car when I’d arrive to my parking spot. And I would just sit there and cry all over again. I would walk up and down the aisles of a store, feeling empty and in a fog with the heaviest weight on my chest and shoulders. How did your loved ones even cope? We were so far away… in separate countries. It seemed so unfair to not be able to go to your mother and hug her… to tell her in person how much we love you, what a wonderful person she raised, and to try to do… something… anything… to ease her pain if only for a moment. Every second I ached… I couldn’t imagine how everyone else who loved you could possibly be feeling. I finally reached a point where every time I started to feel that searing pain, I would tell myself that you were fine; you were in Hermosillo with your family, you were in college, etc. I felt guilty again thinking that we were fortunate to be able to pretend that you were just back at home with your family. Your family didn’t have that luxury. They had to miss your presence every second, minute, day, week, month, and year.
In those first few months, I would have dreams about you, that you were here again. Jose had them too. We talked about them. It felt like you were trying to provide comfort to us, and, even if the reality is that it was only our minds trying to protect us, I still don’t mind feeling like it was really you caring for us. I remember going to sleep stifling sobs, and I would be so desperate to see you in my dreams again. Over the years, I’ve seen you less and less in my dreams, but I still hope for it to happen again and again. I tell myself, you’re doing fine. You’re living your life. You’re 26 years old. You’re an official grown up now. But I know the truth. I don’t see you in my IG feed or my FB feed. I don’t get text messages from you. You are eternally 21 years old in pictures. I will have to imagine you at 30, 40, 50, and beyond. I will have to imagine you with your own children; I know the amazing kind of mother you’d be.
I always swore that our boys would know who you were growing up. That, even though they were so young when you passed, and they would not be able to hang onto memories of their time with you, they would see you in frames on our wall, and they would still see the things you made for them and for us, and they would always know who Priscilla is. To this day, they do not know that you aren’t alive, that you’re not just back home in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico living your life. I could not look at my twin 3 1/2 and 2 year old boys and find words to explain something like that. So when they saw me falling apart despite my best effort to show some semblance of composure, I told them I got soap in my eyes. They wanted to know more, so I showed them the soap near the sink of our bar upstairs, and I showed them how, when you press the foam out, bubbles fly into the air, and those bubbles got into my eyes. And they burned worse than any burn I’d ever felt. The boys have never used that soap; I suppose they don’t want to suffer the same fate lest some floating bubbles fly into their own eyes.
On this, what would be your 26th birthday, I just want to say again that we loved you then, we love you now, and we will love you forever. I got soap in my eyes again, so I’m going to picture you at a party with your favorite Banda in the background. You’re surrounded by friends and family, and you’re posing for pictures. And later on, you’re going to text me a story about something funny that happened, and I’m going to picture you laughing with your deep dimples in your cheeks, and your noise crinkled at the top.  And I’ll tell you, I love you, and I’m so proud of you. You’ve grown into such a amazing woman, and I’m so happy I get to be a part of your life. 

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