Jigsaw

JIGSAW

Rosa Feijoo Andrade

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Copyright © 2012 Author Name

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DEDICATION

For José Octavio, Eliana and Helena, my three teachers.

The last time I saw him he touched my face and looked at me with his loving eyes and long thick lashes...

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank everyone from Mexico’s National Center for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control (CENSIDA) who  helped me to better understand this problem at the time, and who offered material and moral support to complete this work. Thank you to sex therapist Alma Aldana for clarifying all the doubts that I had regarding sexuality; to sex therapist Rinna Riesenfeld for including me in her book, Papá, mamá, soy gay (Mom, Dad, I’m Gay), and for making me a part of her work to help families facing the homosexuality of one of their members; and to sex therapist Luis Perelman for the same reason.

To my entire family for supporting and loving me my entire life – especially to my mother who was the first person to accept her grandson just as he was; to my sister Maxi for her patience when reading and correcting my informal and crazy way of writing; to Roberto and Cristina for loving Jose so much and for their testimonials that helped to enrich my story; to my daughters for collaborating in the memory of their brother and for teaching me to be a more free and open person in the world and helping me to understand the youth of today. And especially to Jose, who is still with me and continues to teach me to be a better human being.

2015: Today, 15 years after publishing this book for the first time, I would like to additionally thank all of my friends, sexually diverse people that I have met along the way, in whom I have seen and been inspired by so much goodness, caring, dedication to their cause, and courage for their fight. Thank you to David Alberto Murillo, President of Amigos contra el sida, A.C. (Friends Against AIDS), for sharing details with me on his Project on AIDS so that I could update the information on this terrible illness provided at the end of the book; to my colleagues at Fundacion Hacia un Sentido de la Vida, A.C. (Foundation for the meaning of life) for their support and friendship; and again to my daughters, sister and entire family for their support and unconditional love over the years.

PREFACE

We speak a lot about HIV-AIDS, we prepare statistics, do research, gather files, etc. but we don’t speak much about each number, about the story of each person that has had this disease, and even less about the experiences and feelings of their relatives on the matter. This case is different. It explains what a mother has felt, seeing her son being born, seeing him become a man, accompanying him in the marvelous adventure of discovering life, and also seeing him die.

This book is a life lesson; it’s full of adventures, anecdotes and feelings that will captivate the reader.  Rosa Feijoo opens the gates to her heart, allowing us to enter her world and come along with her and her family.

The book allows the reader to spend time with her and share her experiences one detail at a time. The writer is a sensitive woman, but also specific in her descriptions, which is very valuable in narrating her own experiences as a mother, wife and person. She shares her feelings with us and takes us by the hand through her life journey.

It’s not easy to share our own story. Rosa is one of the few mothers who speaks to us on the experience of having an amazing son who among many things was homosexual and was unfortunate enough to fall ill and with whom she learned very important things in life.

One of the worst tragedies that people with HIV/AIDS have to bear is the lack of acceptance from their closest loved ones –

from their family – who generally do not know what to do. I am certain that Rosa will open the door to sensitivity and acceptance for many mothers, fathers, relatives and friends of people who live with the virus, since this book, rather than theorizing, will help to break the chains from many hearts that struggle with closeness and understanding.

I think that most people will be able to identify with the experiences expressed here, whether or not they have a relative with HIV. The art of loving and the pain of losing a loved one affect us all in the deepest parts of our hearts.

There are thousands of people hiding the feelings that come with having a family member carrying the virus. For many years this situation has been considered embarrassing, best not discussed, which results in silence and keeps us from learning anything.

This topic is invaluable, because it gives a voice to a population that until now has remained silent and needs so much to be heard as well as to hear those who share the same experience. There is no better lesson than experience – an honest and reliable source where daily life and the things that are closest to us help our understanding.

There are many testimonials available today from people who live with the virus, some of them homosexual, others not; yet very few include the experience of the mothers, their fight, their fear, their helplessness. There are parents who are still saying no to sex education, with all the risks involved, thinking that these risks only apply to other people’s children. This is to remind all of those parents that for everyone else, you are the others, and that every person infected is the child of another. Someone who never imagined they would experience such a thing. However, little by little, information is becoming the best antidote against this disease to which no one is immune.

The work I have completed to date with groups of parents, relatives and friends of homosexual people allows me to have a close understanding of the difficulties that for many is implied in accepting that the sexual orientation of their loved one is not what was thought or expected. This situation becomes all the more painful and difficult when the loved one discloses that they are carrying the human immunodeficiency virus. It should be mentioned that being a homosexual person does not make you particularly prone to acquiring the virus. Vulnerability comes from lack of information and care, no matter what sexual orientation one may have.

Rosa narrates every moment in detail, travelling from one place to another, opening pathways, learning new things from each place, but... where does one learn how to be a mother, to give support and understanding? When and how does one come to accept the death of a child at the hands of an incurable disease which also carries a very heavy social burden due to ignorance? How much courage and bravery does one need to face a situation like that and, most importantly, to write a book on the subject!

No one chooses homosexuality and it does not go away. I do not know any gay person who chose to be gay. But HIV can be fought. Hopefully this book will help there to be fewer victims every year, and also help families that already have someone with the virus to face the situation in a better way. Family is the strongest bond that we have to support us, and it is necessary to be educated so we may in turn educate. 

If you have a child with the virus, do not leave them alone. You are also not alone. This book is proof that others are living the same situation and that they are prepared to share and learn from experience, accepting the fact that this will make them more sensitive and human.  Remember: What does not kill us makes us stronger.

Rosa is a very brave woman. Thank you for sharing such a personal part of your life, which might help so many others.

Rinna Riesenfeld.

Sex Therapist

INTRODUCTION

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Jose Octavio died twenty years ago. He was 27.  Now, in 2015, he would have been 50 years old. Jose is my son. I say is and not was because he lives in me, every day, when for no reason, in my mind I see his baby hands or his little smile with his tiny teeth, which all ended up under his pillow, one by one, stolen in the dark of night by the tooth fairy who exchanged them for coins and used them to build her house. Or his big manly hands, his beautiful scruffy face and large-toothed laugh, his teenage gaze, eternally searching... or the wide eyes and long lashes of a brave man counting the hours until his last breath.

All of these images fill my life, along with thousands more, which sometimes make me laugh and other times – many other times – make me cry. Our children never leave our being, dead or alive. They stay with us like little kangaroos hidden in our imaginary pouches, to come out when they please, like mischievous toddlers, taking over our thoughts.

Jose died of AIDS. When you lose a child, your life falls apart and you are never the same person, ever again. It’s like trying to glue together a broken vase full of cracks that can always be seen; cracks that never stop hurting. Because the grief is not for a few months or a year – it is forever. You have to learn to live again, as if suffering from a deficiency, like a person with one leg or one arm. But how do you live your life without a piece of your soul?

Today, the grief still weighs heavily, but after one year of psychotherapy during which I brought out the pain, acknowledged it, relived it and let it go, I felt the need to tell his story, the story of a young man who, like many others, due to irresponsibility and thoughtlessness or maybe ignorance, lost his life. Maybe I still can’t let it go; maybe I feel like I’m prolonging his life this way. Perhaps, when speaking of him I am healing myself. I want to X-ray his life, I want to understand it, I want to know the reason for his death. I want my daughters to understand it and maybe in doing so, understand themselves, because Jose is a part of them.  I don’t know if I’ll succeed; I don’t know if, at the end of this process, I’ll understand it better or die a little more inside. I just know that I have to do this.

If he were alive, he would have dedicated himself to helping, to trying to save young people from this scourge – because in fact, when he was alive, that’s what he did. Many of his friends died before he did, and I know he was at their bedside accompanying them in their final hours. I want to continue his work in some way, no matter how small... I want his story to touch people’s souls, and for people to become conscious of this disease and take care of themselves. If only one person lives thanks to this book, I will feel that I served a purpose. That way someone’s death, that of my son, will give life to another person, no matter who that may be. That way his death will make sense.

I am now 72 years old, and like all human beings, I was innocent, I fell, I learned, I gracefully stood back up again, and I gained wisdom. This is what makes me think that life is like a jigsaw puzzle that forms itself with every good or bad decision that we make, creating realities that are all interwoven, without fully understanding that our life is gaining texture at the same time, without noticing that we’ve become the elderly or as they call them now, Senior Citizens. I think I am now entering Old Age, but it doesn’t matter; I feel happy and useful. I only remember my age when I look in the mirror... and more importantly, I continue to learn, since, in the end, that is what life is all about.

This is part of the jigsaw puzzle of my life and I hope that you, the reader, will enjoy it. Perhaps you will cry, perhaps not; perhaps you will learn something and perhaps, in some way, your perspective of human behavior will change, even if just a little.

CHAPTER ONE

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JOSE OCTAVIO – EARLY CHILDHOOD

My son’s father is a diplomat by profession. Therefore, Jose’s life, like that of my entire family and that of many diplomats, was marked by very specific stages according to the country they appointed us to. It started in Lima, where he was born, and continued in New Orleans, where we lived for four years. We spent three years in India and then returned to Peru, where my first daughter, Eliana, came into the world. Then it was off to the United States, to Washington D.C., where my second girl, Helena, was born, and five years later, to Canberra, Australia. Four years in that country and then we all returned to Peru, except for Jose. Jose, who by then was 19 years old, went to Mexico to live with my mother and begin his university studies, and that is where he stayed for good.

Like the wooden pieces of an infant’s jigsaw puzzle, this puzzled life is extremely stressful, especially for children. All those changes in countries, houses, languages and friends, according to statistics, can cause very high levels of tension which strongly affect the developing personalities of youngsters. Some diplomats solve this problem by sending their children to boarding school, which they can only leave to visit their parents during vacation periods. Naturally, this makes families anxious and is not the perfect solution.

In our case, we lugged the kids everywhere, because we considered family unity during their developmental years of utmost importance. Unfortunately, that solid and united home that would have allowed a certain stability, was already not working. Arguments between their parents were more and more frequent, the lack of affection and absenteeism of their father increasingly prolonged. The stress of this type of life also overwhelms the adults. 

In the specific case of Jose, he had practically zero communication with his father; it was reduced to a brief exchange of words at breakfast or late at night. At weekends also, the head of the family had to work. Sadly, this created a large void in Jose’s life. The absenteeism, the emptiness, left an imprint on him. He loved his father very much and always yearned to reach him, though he never succeeded, even when he had so few days to live.

As for me, I always tried to make contact with him in a thousand different ways.  It was not easy. Jose was able to hide in his shell and not allow anyone in.

Letters gave good results. Somehow, face-to-face conversations were difficult for him. We would speak Spanish, but with the passing years and living in English-speaking countries, he could not easily find the words to express himself in our native tongue. This would make him tense and ignite the dynamite inside of him, ready to explode. I was not about to back down, since at the time I was quite hot-tempered. On one occasion, when he was around 16 years old, we both became very violent. I realized then that we would not solve anything by going down that road, so I shut up and backed off. After calming down, I wrote him a letter expressing my points of view and the reason for my harshness. I put it in an envelope and left it on his desk. The next morning, his response was posted on the refrigerator with a magnet – and that is how we initiated our communication by written correspondence, which lasted his entire life. To be a parent you have to invent anything that works. What is important is to not lose communication.

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LIMA

This is the story of Jose Octavio, which to a great extent is also mine. He was born in Peru to a Mexican mother and a Peruvian father. Doesn’t his life start in ambiguity, stuck between two worlds?

We didn’t want to have kids right away because I wanted to finish my history degree, and we had plans to travel and get to know each other better as a couple. As a newlywed I went to live in Peru, since my husband was a Foreign Service official there. But three months later, I was pregnant. I cried floods of tears over it, because pregnancy was not part of my plans and also, perhaps, because I was too young and didn’t feel capable of facing the responsibilities of being a mother. It has now been confirmed that babies have feelings even when in the womb. Perhaps he felt rejected, I don’t know; what I do know is that from the moment I first felt him moving inside me, kicking, in a modest hotel room in the city of Cuzco, I loved him in a way that no words can describe; any mother reading this will understand that feeling. 

When he was born on March 27 1965, he was big, strong, gorgeous and loved by everyone around him.

Throughout the entire pregnancy I was under the care of a female German doctor – the only one in Lima at the time who provided a delivery without fear and without anesthesia. She was very stereotypically German, both physically and in her demeanor: somewhat dry, but well-mannered. She gave me a lot of confidence and, under her direction, I practiced breathing exercises for her style of delivery. Unfortunately, they had to give me anesthesia at the last minute due to a small complication, so, with my first child, I missed out on that marvelous moment of feeling the baby coming out of my body.

As if it were yesterday, I remember when I woke up – still in the delivery room – the moment they placed the baby on my chest. It was as if time stood still in that instant, and I floated on a cloud of disbelief or of such great happiness that I was incapable of understanding it. And there it stayed, in my memories for eternity, so I can bring it out as if it were a precious gem, from a little drawer in my emotional jewelry box. You hold it up, admire it again, cry with emotion and store it away again for another time. I have many of those precious gems.

I always hugged and kissed him a lot. I loved to squeeze him and bite his cheeks, his hands or thighs; he would die of laughter with so many squeezes. His baby scent would flood my nostrils, travel up to my brain and give me a kind of intoxication. I cherished those moments so much that I repeated them over and over again, not only with him, but also with my two daughters. I remember that on many of those occasions I recognized how fortunate I was, because I was not only a mother, but I also had all the time I wanted to enjoy my children. So many mothers have to leave their little ones for long periods in daycare or with fathers or grandparents, because they have to go out to work. As time goes by, it is the memory of these specific moments that restores happiness to life and helps make it worth living.

Jose’s father was once also always very caring with him, and so he grew, a smiling and healthy little boy. I remember very well his first night at home, after being in the hospital for three days, when he slept from twelve in the afternoon until five in the morning. Not bad for a newborn. And from that point on, he almost always gave us a good night. He was a crybaby in the evenings, his famous colic hour, but this gradually passed. I would breastfeed him and wait anxiously for the moment when I had to take him out of the crib, change him, feed him and lean him against my shoulder to burp him. This was the most precious moment of all because I would feel his hair and soft warm skin on my neck and face. This, along with his smell of baby lotion, was total ecstasy that would take over all of my senses. Another little gem.

I was soon able to establish a schedule for his feeds, his bath, his trip to the park. He was an easy child to raise and I am thankful for that, because he helped me enormously with my woeful lack of experience in caring for babies, especially as neither my mother or sister were nearby