May 26, 1999

Mamacita was small, only 4'9'' weighing no more than ninety pounds fully clothed. She moved into our home summer of '89 after grandpa died. Mamacita argued with her daughter, my mother, that she didn't want to leave her apartment in the city. She claimed she could take care of herself. This was far from the truth because Grandpa did everything: the bills, the maintenance, the food shopping. My parents transformed the downstairs office into a fourth bedroom for Mamacita to live in, donated the majority of her belongings, and moved her into out home in Valley Cottage with her kicking and screaming the entire way.

Mamacita is Spanish for little mother.

She rarely left the house except to occasionally get the mail across the yard, but that was only when she remembered. It was rare that she even made it to the upstairs of the house. Her favorite past times included watching wrestling on TV, stealing my barbies for herself, and knitting. As a child I was embarrassed when my friends came over to play at her ramblings in Spanglish to her empty room. Mamacita claimed she was praying or talking to her dead husband. We used to joke that she would outlive us all, she had already outlived two sons and a husband and out survived my other three grandparents.

Her given name was Dolores which is Spanish for pain.

I remember wanting her to love me. She loved my brother best because she said he reminded her of her dead son Richard, for who he had been named after. She had no use for me; I was the little girl of her little girl, but my brother was the son she had longed for for decades. Mamacita's face lit up whenever she saw Richard, but with me it was as if I bothered her. We fought, Mamacita and I, over everything and nothing at all. Having been robbed of a grandparent since the other three had died when I was so young I longed to have a connection with her. I needed Mamacita to love me.

The mere scents of her cooking were mouthwatering.


May 26, 1999 I came home from school. It was three days before my senior prom. There was a school event that night, I was in a rush, and I almost walked right past it. The upstairs bathroom light was on and the door was wide open. Mamacita hunched over and lifeless. It didn't matter that I was 18 years old because in that moment I was just a little girl who had lost her only remaining granparent. It reminded me how nearly ten years earlier I had discovered my grandfather, her husband, lifeless on the family room recliner.

I think Dolores "mamacita" Diaz died of a broken heart.

She used to talk about Puorto Rico, her country, and how wonderful it was. I used to think if it was so wonderful she should just go back. Mamacita did leave my house, but to go some place else. On the front steps of my house I watched my brother cry. On the front steps of my house I watched the ambulance cart her away. On the front steps of my house I realized I had lost something in a way I had never had.