Since I can remember, my home had an enormous garden, from tulips to sunflowers. My mother taught me to care for them. Even the ones that were nearly dead, she would water them. She used to say that flowers that grow through hardship always end up being the most beautiful.
I had a fixation with one in particular: a red poppy that grew surrounded by lily of the valley. I remember watching it wither many times. Sometimes it really did die. But it always came back. In the same place and in the same color. As if nothing had happened.
—It's still there —my mother said, crouching down beside me. She smelled of something sweet I always associated with her—. Do you want to move it somewhere else?
I stayed looking at it for a moment. The poppy was smaller than the flowers around it, and its red was too intense compared to the white of the lilies. It stood out in a way I couldn't quite decide was beautiful or simply different.
—No, mom —I answered without thinking much—. I like it there… it makes it special.
I couldn't explain why. I only knew that if we moved it somewhere everything was like it, it would stop being so special.
Every time I came home from school, our house stood out from all the others. Maybe because it was my home… or because the garden really was the prettiest one. Or maybe it was her, always waiting for me, leaning against the gate or the door, with that smile and her arms stretched open toward me.
The afternoons felt long. Peaceful. The air smelled of damp earth and leaves. Sometimes I would go out to the balcony and stay there watching the garden from above, arms resting on the railing and chin on top of them. The sun fell over the flowers differently depending on the hour. In the morning it made them shine. In the afternoon it turned them warmer, more orange, as if the whole world were about to fall asleep.
And the sky… the sky was always there. I didn't look at it as much as I now think I should have. But I knew there was something in it. Something I liked, even if I didn't know how to put it into words yet.
In my free time, I drew.
First it was my mother. Then the flowers. Then the whole garden. The lake in front of the house. Everything I could see from wherever I happened to be.
I was obsessive about details. I would spend ten minutes deciding which shade to use for a shadow, erase and redo the same drawing four times, tear up entire pages just because the proportion wasn't right and start over from scratch without complaining. I used different shades of blue for the sky, even though no one noticed but me. Sometimes I got frustrated because it didn't come out the way I imagined. Other times I kept the pages, as if they were proof I was getting better. And yes, I was getting better, little by little; my mother was the first one to notice.
On my seventh birthday, she gave me a drawing notebook and a box of colors. Just looking at the packaging was enough to tell they were expensive. There were shades I didn't even know existed, names written in small letters beneath each color that sounded like places or things. I promised myself I would make something special with them, but I spent a while just looking at them before using them. They were so beautiful I didn't want to use them up.
On the tenth of February, her birthday, I gave it to her.
It was a drawing of everything: the house, the garden, the lake, the flowers, the sky, the sun… us. It took me days. I erased, redid, tried again until I felt I couldn't improve it any further.
She hung it in the living room. Every time someone visited, she would point to it. She would talk about me. She would say I was talented and creative. I would look away; it embarrassed me… but at the same time, I liked it. Much more than I wanted to admit. There was something that felt good about being seen that way, about having someone tell the world that you existed and that what you did was worth something.
The first Sunday I went to church, I didn't understand anything.
I understood I had to be quiet, because my mother gently squeezed my hand when I started to ask her something out loud and then brought a finger to her lips with a smile. So I sat there watching everything: the colored windows that made the light come in differently, the paintings on the walls and ceiling, figures I didn't recognize but that had a particular serenity, that expression of people in old paintings that makes them seem like they know something you don't. The people who closed their eyes and moved their lips in silence. I wondered if they heard something.. if I could hear it too.
I closed them for a moment, discreetly, hands in my lap, but I didn't hear anything special. Just the priest's murmur, someone coughing two rows back, and the creak of the wooden pews when people shifted.
On the way home, my mother drove slowly, the way she always did, one hand on the wheel and the other resting against the window. The city passed outside with that particular Sunday rhythm. I sat in the back seat looking out the window, just watching the sky, lost in my thoughts.
I wondered if God could listen to everyone at the same time or if there was an order, a queue, like at the doctor's. The car stopped at a traffic light. Outside, a dog crossed the street alone. I wondered if dogs had souls, if they had been created by them too.
When we got home, my mother made hot chocolate for both of us, brought out two chairs and put them in front of the garden, near the lilies. I settled into my favorite chair, the one with the green cushion that had been wearing thin where I always rested my feet, and she sat beside me with her mug held in both hands. She gave me a croissant, the bigger of the two she'd brought.
—So? Did you like going to church? —she said.
—I didn't understand almost anything —I answered honestly.
—I know. I didn't understand almost anything the first time either. —She blew on her chocolate before taking a sip—. What did you understand?
I thought about it for a moment. I held the mug in my hands and felt the warmth moving through the ceramic into my palms.
—That there's someone called God —I said— and that he's very important.
—Yes.
—Who is he?
My mother looked at the garden for a moment before answering. That was something she did when she was really thinking, when she didn't want to say the first thing that came to her.
—God is… the reason things exist instead of not existing. Have you ever wondered why there's a world at all? —she said—. Why there are trees, sky, animals, you and me? Instead of simply nothing.
I looked at the garden.
The question settled somewhere in my head in a way I didn't expect. Because yes. I had wondered that.
—Yes —I said—. Sometimes, when I look at the garden, I wonder where everything came from.
—That's where God comes from —she said.
I nodded, even though I wasn't entirely sure I understood. I filed it away because it seemed important.
—But what does they look like? Does they have a face? —I asked, watching my mother take a bite of her croissant.
—We don't know —she said—. Some people say they feel them as something that resembles love, but bigger. Others say they're in everything that exists. Others say they're a presence more than a person.
I tried to imagine that, something that's there without being seen, but I couldn't quite make it into anything concrete.
—Why don't they just talk to us directly? —I said—. It would be easier.
My mother let out a small laugh.
—It really would —she admitted—. Some say they do talk, but in a language you have to learn to hear. Others say they speak through people and through the things that happen around us.
—Like the priest?
—Yes, like him. We could think of him as a spokesperson, someone in charge of translating and spreading their word so that more people find their way.
I took a sip of chocolate and thought about the word "translating." If God needed translators, or chose to have them, it was because something in their language didn't arrive directly.
—And good? —I said—. The priest talked a lot about good. How do I know if something I do is good or bad?
My mother rested her mug on her knee.
—Our heart tells us —she said—. Tell me, how do you feel when you lie?
—Bad —I answered without hesitating.
—And when you help someone?
I thought about it for a second. The week before, I had helped a classmate pick up her things when her bag fell in the schoolyard and everyone walked over them without stopping.
—Good —I said—. But sometimes it embarrasses me to do it in front of everyone.
—There it is —she replied with a smile before taking another bite of her croissant.
I looked at the poppy and thought again.
— But what if I'm wrong? —I said—. If I do something bad but didn't know it was bad, does that make me bad?
—That happens —she said—. More than we like to admit. It just makes you someone who made a mistake; that's why forgiveness exists, it lets us get over the obstacle and keep going.
Get over the obstacle. I liked that phrase. I repeated it to myself once, but there was something that didn't quite sit right with me. I looked at my mug and then at my mother.
—Mom, why did God create obstacles? —I said—. If He can do anything, why didn't they make a world without problems?
—Because obstacles teach things that happiness can't —she said.
—But a world without problems would be better place, wouldn't it?
She shook her head gently.
—No, sweetheart, it would be a very boring world to live in —she said—. And very empty.
—Why?
—Everything we value comes from having gone through something. Learning, growing, even truly loving someone. Obstacles change you. And changing is the most important thing that can happen to you.
I looked at the garden and took a bite of my croissant while I processed that. The poppy that always came back to the same place. My mother who kept watering the flowers that seemed dead because she believed they could come back.
—So… if obstacles are necessary —I said slowly, following the thread—, why are there bad people? Why doesn't God just make us all good?
My mother smiled at me.
—Because evil always presents itself as the quick solution, and if God made us good by force, it would be like me forcing you to love me. Would it be worth the same?
I tried to imagine it and the idea made me uncomfortable in a way I didn't expect.
—No —I said—. Because it wouldn't be real.
—Exactly —she said—. That's why god lets us choose. Even though some choose badly.
—And can they be forgiven? The ones who choose badly?
—If the repentance is real, yes.
—Even if they do something very bad?
—Even if they do something very bad.
Something in that answer didn't quite close for me and I didn't know exactly where the gap was.
—Is that fair? —I said.
My mother looked at me for a moment.
—What do you think?
I hated and loved that question at the same time. I hated it because I wanted her to give me the answer, and I loved it because it meant she believed I could find it.
—I don't know —I said, looking at my mug—. Sometimes it seems like yes, that if someone truly tries, they deserve another chance. But sometimes I feel like no, that there are things that shouldn't just be able to be erased as if nothing happened.
My mother nodded slowly.
—That tension you feel —she said— is exactly the most important question, and there's no answer that satisfies everyone. Justice and forgiveness always pull in opposite directions. One says everything has consequences. The other says we are more than the worst thing we've ever done. It's up to us to decide which one deserves to prevail, and with whom.
I kept looking at the garden. I wondered if that was a good thing, if there was a limit to what is good and what isn't. There was something about it that felt heavy.
—Do you believe everything they say in church, mom? —I said—. What if it isn't true?
—Sometimes I wonder that too —she said finally—. But the teachings are what matter most, whether or not there's a God behind them. —She took a long sip of chocolate—. When you see someone do good… when you see that it changes something… you start to think it's worth believing in. —She looked at me—. And I think that's why we're here. What matters is, the journey of finding ways for everyone to be a little happier, and then, when we look back, what will remain is the love we left behind, not the answers we found.
I sat with that. I filed it away the same way I kept the drawings I wasn't sure were good yet, with the idea of coming back to look at them later, when I had more tools to see what they really were. The garden stayed quiet in front of us while the sun finished setting and the shadows grew longer, and the poppy stayed in its place among all the other flowers, red and completely itself.
I dedicated a large part of my life to drawing. I liked landscapes, nature… there was something there that made me feel calm. But I didn't always feel capable; sometimes I felt helpless thinking I was stuck with no improvement, but my mother was always there, supporting me and encouraging me. Sometimes that just meant sitting nearby while I drew, without saying anything, just being there. Sometimes it meant asking about the drawing and how I'd done it. She never told me I was the best or the worst. She told me it was mine. That what I made was completely mine. And that was worth more than anything else.
At sixteen, she gave me my first laptop. When I turned it on, it already had folders organized in her handwriting: color theory, anatomy for artists, perspective, composition, art history. Documents and files and links to things she had looked up without telling me she was looking them up.
I spent that night reading, jumping from one folder to the next, finding things I didn't know I needed to know. And at some point, with the screen lighting up the dark room, I thought this was exactly what she had said that afternoon in front of the garden.
I looked at the screen: folders and documents organized on a new laptop for a daughter who still didn't know exactly who she wanted to be, and yet she believed in me anyway.
I turned eighteen on a Tuesday.
It wasn't a particularly special birthday. My mother made the usual cake, the vanilla one with cream that never came out perfectly decorated but that tasted exactly the way it was supposed to taste. We put in the candles, I blew them out, we ate at the garden table because the day was clear and she said it would be a waste not to make use of it.
It was after the cake that she brought out the box.
It was small, wrapped in brown paper with a green ribbon she had tied with that care of hers, the care of someone who takes details seriously. I put it on the table and looked at it for a moment before opening it.
Inside was a stuffed rabbit. Small, beige fur, with long floppy ears hanging down on either side. I held it in both hands. It was soft and beautiful.
Then my mother and I sat in our usual chairs, facing the garden. She always had a sixth sense for knowing when I wasn't doing well. She didn't say anything at first. She just looked at the garden, which was at its best that year, everything in bloom, as if it had decided to make a special effort for the occasion.
—It's time for you to go to university, sweetheart —she said finally.
—I know —I answered.
—Are you scared?
I looked at the poppy. It was in its place among the lily of the valley, the same as always.
—Yes —I said—. Very.
My mother nodded as if that were exactly the right answer.
—Good —she said—. It means you care about what's coming.
—What if I can't? —I said—. What if I get there and it turns out I'm not as good as I thought, or I don't fit in, or…?
—Nobody knows if they can before they do —she said—. And every person who now knows they can, at some point thought they couldn't either.
I kept looking at the garden as those words crossed my mind, i knew she was right, yet i felt scared.
—I'm going to miss you —I said, and my voice came out smaller than I wanted it to.
—And I'll miss you —she said—. Every day.
She stood up without saying anything and went inside. I heard her moving around, drawers opening and closing. She came back with a small gardening trowel and an empty pot, walked over to the poppy, and carefully dug it out from its place among the lilies.
—H-Hey.. Mom… —I said.
—You're going to take care of it —she said—. It likes indirect light. Not too much water or the root rots. And if you see it wilting, don't panic. You know how it is.
—But it's your favorite…
—Now it's yours, sweetheart.
—Won't you miss it?
My mother made that small gesture of hers, the kind that means the question doesn't quite make sense.
—It's like you —she said—. Just as stubborn. It deserves as much care as you do.
I looked at the poppy in the pot. The same red as always.
—Mom…
—Call me —she said—. Every Sunday at ten. Without fail. Agreed?
—Every Sunday at ten —I repeated.
—And if one day you can't wait until Sunday, call before. I don't care what time it is.
—Alright.
—Promise?
—Promise.
She hugged me then, in that way of hers that took up more space than her body had any right to. She smelled the same as always, of damp earth and something sweet I could never quite identify. I closed my eyes and stayed there for a moment, trying to hold on to the memory of it in case I needed it later. When she let go, her eyes were bright but she didn't cry.
I did cry a little afterward, on the bus, when the garden was no longer visible through the window and the house had become one point among other points.
I sat by the window with the rabbit in my lap and the poppy secured carefully in the bag at my feet, checking on it every so often to make sure it hadn't shifted too much.
For the first hour I watched the landscape without thinking about anything specific. The fields opening up on either side of the road, that green I knew well because it was the green of my whole life. The small houses appearing and disappearing among the trees. The telephone poles passing with that hypnotic rhythm that sometimes lulls you and sometimes makes you think too much.
I thought about the rabbit and the poppy. About what my mother had said, that it was like me. I wondered if I could be as stubborn as it was, but I wanted to try.
The bus braked on a curve and the bag with the poppy slid a little. I straightened it with my foot without lifting my forehead from the glass. Outside the green was beginning to change. More buildings, more roads crossing the main one, more signs with names I didn't recognize. As if the city had decided to announce itself from a distance before showing itself in full.
The terminal smelled of diesel and too many people breathing the same air. The noise was constant: rolling suitcases, overlapping voices, announcements lost in the echo. I came out with my backpack on my shoulder, the bag with the poppy in one hand. The rabbit's ears were poking out through the half-open zipper of my backpack; I hadn't found another place that felt safe enough to carry him.
The city outside was something else entirely. The noise was different from the terminal's, more open and dispersed. I looked at the map on my phone for probably longer than necessary, trying to get my bearings.
I walked two blocks in a direction I was reasonably sure was right, then doubted, then half a block more, then stopped at a corner and looked at the blue dot that was supposed to be me and that didn't match where I thought I was.
I admitted to myself, with the same honesty with which I had told my mother I was scared, that I was completely lost.
—Excuse me —I said, approaching a man who was passing by.
He looked to be around forty. He carried a cloth bag and wore headphones that he pulled off with a quick gesture.
—Yes?
—I'm looking for this address —I said, showing him the screen—. I think I got a little lost.
He looked at the phone, then the street, then the phone again.
—You're going the wrong way —he said—. You see that blue building at the end?
—Yes.
—Get there and turn right. Then go three blocks and look for Mirabel Street. The number you're looking for will be halfway down the block, left side.
—Blue building, right, three blocks, Mirabel, left side —I repeated.
—Exactly.
—Thank you so much, really —I said, with all the gratitude those two words can hold.
He was already putting his headphones back on when he stopped.
—First time in the city?
—Is it that obvious? —I said, a little embarrassed.
He made a gesture that could have been a smile.
—A little —he said—. But in two weeks you'll know your way around. It always happens.
That man went on his way across the street. I was glad to find there were kind people in this city willing to help.
I stayed at the corner for a moment after he left. Then I started walking in the direction he had pointed.
The apartment was on the third floor of a building that from the outside was not particularly memorable. The inside was smaller than the photos had suggested, the way all things are when you see them in person after imagining them.
Inside it smelled of clean things and wood and something faintly sweet I couldn't identify. The walls were a white that wasn't quite white, more like the white of clouds, The floors were light wood with some marks along the edges that said someone had lived there before. There was a small kitchen with a window looking onto a quiet alley. A living room that was also a dining room with a two-chair table. A bedroom with a single bed and a desk I immediately imagined covered in notebooks and pencils. And at the far end, a glass door opening onto a narrow balcony where exactly two people could stand if they didn't move around too much, with a view of the main street.
I went out to the balcony with the pot still in my hands.
The noise of the city came up from below with that constancy I still found strange. I thought about putting the poppy there, on the ledge, where it would get the afternoon sun. Then I saw a cat on the roof across the way looking at me with that particular feline indifference, and I went back inside. I'd rather not risk a stray cat knocking my poppy over.
I put it on the windowsill in the living room, where the light came in filtered and without excess. I gave it a little water. I checked to see how it had survived the journey. It was a little bent but not broken. I straightened it carefully, turning the pot toward the light.
—This is where we're going to live —I told it, in a low voice so I don't feel completely ridiculous talking to a plant.
Then I thought that my mother had been talking to plants for years and my mother's plants were the healthiest in the neighborhood. So maybe it wasn't that strange.
I put the rabbit on the bed, propped against the pillow with his ears sticking out. The apartment already felt a little less empty.
I went out to explore that same afternoon because staying inside waiting for the city to become familiar made no sense at all.
The streets were completely different from home. Two people arguing on a corner while next to them a musician played something on a small guitar and further along a group of students laughed at something I couldn't hear, all of it happening at the same time without any part of it paying attention to the rest.
There were shops of every kind stacked one beside the other without any apparent order: a hardware store next to a boutique next to a fruit shop next to an electronics store with screens lit up in the window. Restaurants with their doors open and the smell of food mixing with the smell of the city, gasoline and bakery and something green I couldn't identify. Street stalls on the corners selling flowers, coffee, magazines, fruit cut into plastic cups.
I walked without any fixed direction for almost an hour, I passed through Plaza Verne, with its fountain in the center that someone had painted blue at some point and that now had that flaking blue which gave it more character than it probably had when freshly painted.
I passed through the covered market on Aldana Street, where the smell was completely its own, a mix of spices and fruit and something fried coming from some stall at the back. I walked through the aisles looking at things I didn't need to buy, touching fabrics, reading labels, feeling invisible in a way that wasn't lonely but free.
Further along there was an art supply store with a window full of things I recognized and things I didn't. I stood in front of the glass for longer than was socially reasonable and promised myself I would come back someday with money.
At some point without having looked for it I arrived at a quieter street, with trees on both sides and tables out in front of some of the shops. A small bookstore. A florist where the plants spilled out onto the pavement. And at the end of the block, a café with a wooden sign with hand-painted letters that the sun had been darkening over the years until it had that color that well-used things have.
Café Taiga.
Through the window I could see the inside: light wooden tables, chairs that didn't match each other but worked together somehow, a long bar at the back. I went in.
It smelled of coffee and something baked and old wood. A song played from somewhere I couldn't identify, something slow with guitar. Five or six people sat at separate tables, each one in their own world.
I sat at the corner table, the one with the window onto the street, and ordered a cup of tea.
When it arrived I held it in my hands the way I always did, feeling the warmth pass through the ceramic into my palms, and I looked out the window at the quiet street with its trees and its afternoon light.
I thought about my mother. About how at this moment she was probably in the garden, or in the kitchen, and I decided to text her.
—Arrived safe. The apartment is nice. The poppy is on the windowsill. I found a café you'd like.
She replied in less than a minute.
—Im glad sweetheart, Did you eat anything?
—Not yet, but I will soon mom :)
—Alright, don't skip meals and drink water, don't forget to call me before you go to sleep, okay?
—Yes mom, I will.
I put my phone away and looked out the window. The city moved past outside at its own rhythm and I was here inside, with my hands around a cup of tea, completely alone in a place I didn't know, and yet it wasn't as frightening as I had thought it would be.
I walked back to the apartment with my hands in my pockets and the sky above me, narrower than at home, changing color very slowly as I made my way through the streets that in two weeks, the stranger with the headphones had said, I would already know how to navigate on my own.
Will continue soon!