Talking about my daughters’ deaths allowed me to help others

“In 2016, we went on vacation to Peru with my family, my children and grandchildren. We rented a house with a beach nearby. We arrived on a Sunday and the same Monday we went to the sea. I was lying down and we didn’t realize that my daughters, María José (34 years old) and Antonia (24 years old), were going to swim. Another of my daughters saw that the water was up to their knees.

They never went to sea, for whatever reason. But suddenly a kind of peat, a whirlwind, grabbed them and threw them about 70 meters towards the rocks. I always explain that the last image I saw of them was a head and a hand. My son-in-law and my children got involved in trying to get them out. There were no guards, no lifeguards, nothing on this beach. It was impossible to get them out. After several hours, they found them in different places. It was too hard, terrible, awful. Worse.

I’ve been talking about my daughters’ grief and death on social media for about three months. This is something I started consciously. And even though at first I took care of small things, I then continued because I realized that I could help people and that excited me. To all those who write to me, who are fed up, I try to answer them. And I realized that this produces deep connection through pain.

I think helping others is my second project in life and it makes me happy. Especially since I don’t give any recipes. Nothing I say to you will make your pain go away. and people realize that there is no recipe, it’s more of a journey. It’s one time at a time. You have to cry for people.

People don’t like to cry, especially men. Nor talk about death. People are afraid of death because deep down, they don’t know what it is and aren’t discovering it either. But at any moment we disappear, as happened to me and my daughters. I really like talking about this. I accept death, it is inevitable for everyone.

When friends came to my house, they talked to me about other things and all I wanted to do was talk about my daughters, what happened, how it happened. Because they were affectionate, because they were good people, they talked to me about other things to distract me. I have interviewed many mothers who have been in this situation and they tell me the same thing: They only want to talk about the son or daughter they lost, all other topics do not interest them.

This made me very angry, I felt misunderstood, until I later realized that it was out of affection and love. They just don’t know how to talk about sadness, they don’t know how to talk about grief.

Over time I realized that without death there is no life and we are all going to experience that, so I think we need to talk about it. When I was little, the subject was hidden. Someone died and you never spoke about that person again, you didn’t go into their room. I think it’s very important today, in a faster and different world, to talk about these things.

What happens is strange because I also realized that at the same time death This is a topic people want to talk about. We are all going to die, that’s the only thing that is clear to us. And when people get closer, I get to cheer them up and I love it.

We are still in mourning: you move, you separate, the day passes, your son goes to live abroad and you don’t see him for two or three years. . These things are also duels. I wrote a book about five of my heartbreaks and now I say that if I hadn’t had them, I might not have given up on the subject of my daughters. Life prepared me for it without realizing it. I am grateful for what happened to me before my daughters died, because that is why I was able to stand on my own two feet. I had a toolbox that I could use. Maybe the process was long, hard, sad, horrible. It’s like being in the last hole on the planet and seeing nothing. But when I got better, I realized that my second mission was to help others in any way I could.

I was lucky to have worked on this issue in therapy because we never get over grief. I still cry and miss them. Sometimes I think, “I wish they would come down from somewhere and I could hug them.” I think this will happen until the day I die, I have no doubt about it. But having gone through all these emotions allows you to get through it. I had anger, anxiety, sadness, jealousy all at the same time. It’s a ball of pure feeling. It helps me to be positive, although I don’t really like to say it because it’s not easy for everyone, but I always try to see the better part of the glass and that has helped me.

I returned to this beach three and a half years after the accident. I wanted to go back to that place because I wanted to cry and think about them. When all this happened I couldn’t because I had to do a lot of paperwork, I had to occupy the side of my head to think about what I should do. I always felt like I hadn’t mourned them the way I wanted to. And that’s why I came back three and a half years later, to the same place. It was hard to get there, but I came out happy. I cried everything.

It was also at that moment that I reconciled myself with the sea. The sea took them from me, but I was very lucky that it gave them back to me too and I was able to bury them, it’s a gift. When people don’t bury their loved ones, there is always this feeling of never turning the page, of doubt. This is what happens to the mothers of missing detainees. I think about these mothers a lot. After all the sadness, I feel like it was a gift to be able to bury them.

At first I thought what happened to me was very unfair. Why hasn’t this happened to anyone else?, he thought. But that’s just the ego. When I accepted what had happened, that’s when I started to grieve. I denied it before. By accepting that I wasn’t going to see them again, that the little girls were dead, that’s when I started mourning. Because there are also criticisms. It is inevitable to think that if we had not gone to this beach, nothing would have happened. But then you realize that the same thing is going to happen, that when you get your minute, the same thing is going to happen. These guilts are normal. That’s why I feel this way Talking about it can be a contribution to another person.

At first I didn’t go out and when I started going to the supermarket I saw that people were laughing. I thought, why are they laughing? Why don’t you cry with me? I saw the cars driving and I didn’t understand why the world wouldn’t stop crying and that’s a huge ego. I saw mothers walking around with daughters the same age and it made me horribly jealous. When you talk about these emotions and thoughts, people say: the same thing happened to me. You see, it’s normal.

I think it’s also important for me not to fall into the role of a victim. People tell you a lot, the poor, the poor. But if you stay there, it’s difficult to get out. You remain in this poor role. It’s easy to fall into this. And not just with the death of children, but with many other things. So I always say: I am not poor towards anyone. The things that happened to me happened to me.

With my son-in-law’s family, we formed a sort of block and grouped together to cry and cry together. It was super important because a child’s birthday was coming up, Christmas was coming up. I always talk about little girls, my sons too. We laugh about the stupid things they did, we always talk about them, they are always on the table. I don’t see them, so I had to form another relationship with them, but I feel them.

“I once asked my granddaughter if she remembered her mother. She told me no, but I knew her. And yes, he knows her through us, through photos, through stories, through memories.

On social networks, I meet people who are very sad about different situations. So I tell them things that I think might help them, things that have helped me. We are talking. People from other countries write to me. They tell me about their sorrows and we often meet for coffee. I also once went to Viña to speak with a mother, we had lunch, we walked on the beach and I came back very happy to have been able to support her. These things fill me because I feel that it is a grain of sand of help for someone.

Sometimes families are divided because someone dies and each person grieves separately. I think it is very important to talk about our deaths . I talk about it with my grandchildren, with María José’s children. One day, I asked the youngest: do you remember your mother? and she said to me: I don’t remember, but I know her. He knows it through us, through photos, through stories, through memories.

For me, the most important thing was that they had their mother present, that they talked to her, that they cried for her, that they mourned her. When she died, I thought they died with her. Today, they are happy children. I realized that people could be replaced and thank God, because these children had to continue to live, they had to be happy children. They remember, they cry for her, but they are happy. And my son-in-law has been an extraordinary father and mother. Beautiful things are also born from terrible things.

* Paula She is a writer and artist.