Tuesday, March 9, 1999
Dear Friends,
 I ask for your support and kind words.  My Grandma died last Thursday.
I flew to Albuquerque on Saturday.  My brother John and Christine, his
wife, picked me up.  We went from the airport to the viewing.  I was
shocked by how thin my grandma’s body was.
On Sunday when my father and brother picked me at the hotel,  I realized
that my father is no longer rational.  My mother could not come from
Santa Fe because she has a heart problem.  I was shocked by how out of
it and shrunken my father is.
Now I am home.  I feel lost and alone.
      Thanks,
       Mariana
Path of the Phoenix 1993

Approaching Grandma’s house
in Albuquerque from Santa Fe
not by the highway
running due south
I take another path,
meandering eastward.
I gather strength to deal with my feelings
of early loss and yearning for tenderness.
Sage brush, juniper, dry earth.
Dark storm clouds come from the east.
Tumble weed
jack rabbits along rutted road.

I arrive at Grandma's
with the first sprinkles of rain.
She is slower to come and greet me,
after five years
no longer nimble, dressed in slacks
short silver hair freshly curled.
I hug her and feel her frail bones.

I smell the rain in the air.
I am taller, stronger than she is now.
I walk, pushing my wheelchair, into the house,
suitcase on top of the seat.
I take another path.
I am no longer
the severely handicapped child
who must accept her well-meant abuse.
Now I can say what I want.

I ask to see old photos,
find one of her,
vigorous in a white-striped dress,
holding me, a very thin one-year-old.
Wind moans, the roof sighs.

Grandpa has been dead 18 years,
I miss seeing him reading
the sport’s page at the table.
He wore clean gray work clothes
and kept a bottle of whisky
under the kitchen sink.
I  promise my therapist
I would not drink
during this visit
even when Grandma offers me
blackberry wine.

People in my family don't talk.
Grandma hides
by cooking and washing dishes.
I take another path.
I ask specific questions.

Grandma got me from the hospital
when I was first born
because my mother had TB.
Grandma says how hard I was to feed,
how my parents' taking me away
from her hurt both of us.
Even now, I am terrified
that people I care about
will suddenly disappear.
My mother’s lap was stiff and cold,
while hers was soft and cuddly.
I was twelve, the last time I sat
in Grandma’s lap as tall as she was,
but oh so skinny, and scared
because we were moving to Caracas and
I didn’t know when I would
see her again.

We talk for two hours.
I hold her hand
when her eyes get misty.
The wind dies down.
The storm passes to the north.
I take another path.
I tell her that I love her.
I find my first mother.
Sun comes out.