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In the shadows, a dazzling light

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The birth of your child gives your life an arc. In fact: pregnancy. From the first strange soreness, sudden nausea, you begin to measure out your life anew. Nine months, developmental milestones, how much longer of these diapers, of this breastfeeding business? How much longer will she snuggle like this? Looming, that end tape: 18 years. 

We all see it there, a constant horizon. We look forward with dread or anticipation. After 18 years, some freedom will be restored, whether we want it or not.

Imagine, then, those mothers of mothers slain. The grandmothers who stand in the shadows of a femicide.

The murder of a young mother at the hands of her child’s father leaves many lives in ruins. But for that mother’s own mother—perhaps gearing up for a third act, perhaps easing into relaxation, graying and fraying as we do—it breaks the whole arc. In one instant of horror, a tent pole vanishes from the center of her existence. 

Her life refills with little socks and the nightly communion of teeth-brushing. To the uninitiated, this might sound comforting. Surely, at times, it is. But those little socks are not just socks. They are her entire life repeating, against her will. They are a return to the beginning just when the very beating of her heart seems to have ended.

As she grieves, she is called back into action. She must rewind to the start just when her years of work to raise her daughter have been cruelly tossed aside by hate. With one soulmate torn away, a wound never to heal, she reshapes herself around another.

In the shadows, a dazzling light. For what greater, sadder, stronger love than this? 

Text by Katherine Stanley Obando, dedicated to the mothers of Heisel and Eva, and to the other mothers and fathers on the forefront or in the shadows of our reporting this month. Image by Priscilla Mora Flores (see her full story here). Our Sunday #MediaNaranja series features short stories about love in all its forms.

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Katherine Stanley Obando
Katherine Stanley Obando
Katherine (Co-Fundadora y Editora) es periodista, editora y autora con 16 años de vivir en Costa Rica. Es también la co-fundadora de JumpStart Costa Rica y Costa Rica Corps, y autora de "Love in Translation." Katherine (Co-Founder and Editor) is a journalist, editor and author living in Costa Rica for the past 16 years. She is also the co-founder of JumpStart Costa Rica and Costa Rica Corps, and author of "Love in Translation."

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