My childhood was great. My parents always protected me. My father was always ill. My mother used to take care of him with so much love. She cooked tortillas to sell. My mom and I used to make serviettes, and we would sell them so I could buy a pair of shoes and a dress.
“When I was 14 years old my dad passed away and my mother was really weak because she did not feed herself so as to provide the best to my father.”
One day, a few months after my dad passed away, she fell and broke a knee. My siblings and I did not know what to do. In our ignorance a lady used to massage her knee, but her knee started to swell a lot and we took her to the hospital. There, they told us that her knee was broken. Several days later, she died from a heart attack. That is what they told us. The big question we were left with is, that when they took her body home, her two legs and face were bandaged. Now we think that they did that to my mother. We will never know. Just God knows.
Storyteller Jenefer lives in California. This story was written during the Lideres Campesinas: Sembrando El Futuro workshop in Greenfield, California.
Thank you for sharing your story. It made me sad, and also angry. I am so sorry for your losses and for the way the medical community failed your family.