e·pis·tle
1. a long formal letter that often serves to instruct (formal)
2. a literary work in the form of a letter
Around May 2009, Linda Nieves-Powell of Latino Flavored Productions put out a call for writers to submit an epistle. I had no idea what to write and I racked my brain trying to figure it out. I thought about my uncle Tito who died two years before my birth and how I often wondered if he and I were alike in any way. From this thought, sprung a heartbreaking letter from a young female to her late uncle who died a day before her birth and all the repercussions his death had on her and her family’s lives.
I was scared, to say the least, when Linda explained I would be performing this at the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe on June 11, 2009. I busied myself with work and other projects and didn’t think much of it, until the day approached. I was nervous…telling myself, just read slowly and with emotion, and you’ll be fine.
Listening to others perform, I was overwhelmed with the raw emotion and heart that all of these performers showed and was blown away by their intense work. I felt my stage fright creeping up on me. But surrounded by supportive artists and with the dedicated direction of Linda Nieves-Powell…I did something I have not done in five years…I performed on stage. And the experience, to say the least ,was exuberant and beautiful.
A special thank you to Linda, the cast and my friends who supported me in the audience. Thank you all for experiencing this with me.
Below is the piece I performed, entitled “Your Hands”
[Stay tuned for a later posting of the video]
Your Hands
By Angelique Imani Rodriguez
Dear Tío Chuy,
The first time I heard your name I was turning ten years old. Mami was bent over the sink crying before I left for school and I couldn’t figure it out until Papi told me about you. They called you Chuy and told me that you were my mother’s only brother and had died the day before I was born. They told me I had hands like you.
I found out much later that your real name was Jesus. I guess that is an appropriate name for you. To them, you always were a revered entity. They told me you died when a mugger trying to take your gold chain shot you in the heart. Papi tells me it was way more than a mugging. He tells me to be realistic.
“C’mon nena, you know what it was about. He was about your age when he died. What are poor brown boys doing for quick cash, huh? You tell me.”
I’d like to think you never got our hands dirty, Tío Chuy.
The anniversary of your death marks the coming of another year for me. Every year on that day, Mami shuts herself in her bedroom and cries or prays or drinks or smokes, as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist…as if I don’t exist. Sometimes I can hear her crying…sometimes I can smell the tobacco in the air. She never smokes except for that day and now the acrid smell of cigarettes always reminds me of my birthday.
Things became a lot more complicated than I could have ever imagined at that young age. Abuela died around the same time Papi left. I was fifteen years old. She passed in her sleep one cold morning. He left a month later. I suppose the pressure of helping my mother through another death in the family was just too much for him. Soon after, I had to admit Mami into the hospital for panic attacks while Rosa, our neighbor stayed with me. She’s in therapy now and on anti-depressants that don’t help at all. My mother has always been like a sad puppy that becomes vicious when comforted. And yet, no matter how mean, I still want to hold her. I know she loves me …she tells me every day…but her scars dull her voice to a whisper.
I never really speak to my father as much as I use to but when I do, his voice is tinged with resentment and age. I wonder how much more he had to face with Mami compared to me and I don’t hate him for being the man he is, though he is oftentimes infuriatingly stubborn now. I just don’t have patience for Papi. He always did for everyone else and never really had anything done for him… and I suppose it changed him….being the comforter all the time. Now, he wants to be nurtured and cared for. He prefers to live alone but is never seen without some docile woman hanging off his every word, who he drops like a bad habit when they reveal they are human and have their own problems. He calls this chapter in his life “his time,” and he’ll be damned if any woman and her issues causes a wrinkle in that. I guess he means Mami and I as well, since the last we spoke to him was months ago.
I ask myself if it caused them to become the people they are today. If you had never died, would they still be as in love? I wonder if my relationships with them would have been better, if even I would have become a different person. Would I have a good relationship with you if you were still here?
And out of all of this, I ask myself what did I do? Did they forget I was there? I would get so angry whenever my birthday would come around. I never got a birthday party as a child because Mami was too tired or sad to throw one. Even when I turned sixteen, I was given some money and told to go have fun with the friends I didn’t have. I used the money to buy weed. They didn’t even notice. I was always told “Remember what day yesterday was and be patient with her, nena.” It seemed as if your death always outweighed my birth. No matter what. What did I ever do to deserve that? Out of sheer frustration and confusion, I put them through more than I should have; rebelling against flimsy curfews, smoking pot and drinking heavily. Needless to say, my choices in boys were everything my parents and God wanted me to stay away from. I was no angel, Tío Chuy.
I have always hated my long fingers, my thick wrists. I hid them when I went on dates and stuffed them in pockets at school. Sometimes in a tiny moment of affection, Mami would hold my hand and tell me how lovely you played piano. At sixteen, I took to self cutting. Slicing red lines into the knuckles, fingertips, and palms they said were yours. I hated the hands that reminded all of them of you.
And yet, I wonder to this day if my nose is like yours…if my mannerisms match yours. I wonder if we laughed the same, if I have the same smirk as the one in the picture I took from Abuela’s altar. I tell myself that you and I were alike and that is why Mami pushes me away when she’s sad and Papi could never hug me. I reassure myself that this penchant I have for writing my thoughts down is because I have your hands and your hands would have written volumes upon volumes.
I am studying to be a teacher, Tío Chuy. I go to college upstate in Utica. This year I celebrated my twentieth by myself. I smoked a cigarette in front of the dorms and threw up from the taste of my own birthday. I cried from not knowing you….from wanting to understand the wheels in my father’s head and for yearning to heal the wounds in my mother’s heart. I am tired of asking questions I will never get the answers to…of wanting to know who my family could have been…of feeling angry at them… of them shutting me out from something I had no control over. I am tired of trying so hard to change and having the same feelings I always had follow me everywhere I go…even all the way upstate to college.
Mami asks me why I feel it necessary to write this to you. She shakes her head as I scribble this letter to you on the pages of a composition notebook. She always thought writing was a frivolous hobby and it has sometimes been the topic of our most passionate arguments. She’s thrown out plenty of notebooks over the course of my adolescence in an attempt to rid me of it, but this letter? She is too scared to even breathe on these pages.
I remember my tenth birthday and being told about who you were, and it almost tears me apart. I want to reach out and hug myself and comfort her before any of the next decade happens. I blame you. I blame you for her sadness and his distance and my loneliness. I blame myself because I have your hands.
She asked me what I will do once it’s written. I told her it was just for me and I would do nothing with it. But I plan on leaving this on your grave…I want it to disintegrate into the soil and feed your remains. I want to bury it with both of my hands…your hands…our hands. I want you to feel…all the way in Heaven… the person you never knew….the life your death has changed.
