In Latin America, a space that holds the tongues and dialects of more than 450 recognized languages, there is a universal phrase that almost any child can recognize from the first time they ever felt pain in their life. It is the phrase you hear when you skin your knee on the sidewalk because you thought you could run faster than your legs were capable. The first time you trip on the damned step, the one that doesn’t exist, and find yourself inhabiting a space that takes your breath away, a new wound pulsating beneath you. The times you rocket yourself off the rusted swing set, soaring and flying, and so brave, before the hurt settles in. The first time you pick yourself up, realizing that there would not always be someone there to catch you when you fall.
To that cacophony of sensation there would be the accompaniment of a rush of footsteps, a warm embrace, and the soothing voice of care. For me that was my mother, a woman of forty when I was born, who had fought her way here from warmer, drier soil. Black hair thick as the ripe mangos waiting to fall off the low–slung branches she’d offer me during humid sunsets in Guadalajara. Tree trunk arms with a sweet spot for God. She was a dedicated horticulturist, a fanatic, always believing that she could provide for me a thornless garden as long as she tried hard enough. And when she would ultimately recognize that to be an impossibility, there she would be, holding me against the sky anytime the world dared to make me stumble.
“Sana, sana, colita de rana,” she would whisper, a magical cure to whatever illness or sensation plagued me at the time. It did not matter if I was four and had fallen off the tire swing or if I was seventeen, nursing off my first heartbreak. This was a wonder cure, the spoken words of our generations taking care of one another.
The American bullfrog, the northern leopard frog, the common green frog. These were my new friends. Ribbits in all of the puddles on my way to school. I remember the footsteps of watery pitter patter as I’d skip in the mornings, little rain boots squeaking jovially amidst the trees lining the sidewalk. I’d see a tiny ribbiting guy just sitting on the side of the road, my soon to be savior. I’d often pray for everyone in my life to have the same luxury. When I heard of others suffering, I’dmentally send them a little frog, galloping the span of miles and acres to my loved ones’ bedrooms. When my best friend moved away in sixth grade and missed pretending to be the Cheetah Girls. When my father started smoking cigarettes to cope with stress. When my mom lost her hair, her body emaciated by chemotherapy.
My mother would often coo the first part of the phrase to me, so often it was a tattoo on my memory. It did not matter if the phrase did not make sense. What did a little frog’s tail have to do with my pain? What would this little guy do to make me feel better? As a child I always imagined a small frog would hop into my lap, its magical green skin emanating healing energy until all my wounds receded into bare skin. Though it was not instantaneous, I slowly learned that everything does heal. Bruises fade, hearts rethread themselves, and frogs sing their song every summer night. However long forgotten or underused, there is also a second part to the expression my mother would say. She almost never spoke the entire phrasing aloud, but I never forget its message. The original saying goes:
“Sana, sana, colita de rana,
Si no sana hoy, sanará mañana.”
(Heal, heal, little frog tail,
If you don’t heal today, you will heal tomorrow).
I don’t live with my mother anymore. But I do often trip from the 232 WTA bus and scrape my knees at school. I accidentally cut my fingers when I make myself a sandwich with tomatoes. I stumble down my building’s two flights of stairs on my way to work. I am always befriending the pavement when I jump on my skateboard. I cannot resist touching the cactuses when I visit my parent’s house. I am an absolute scoundrel that loves getting tattoos no matter how much they make my eyes water. However, at the end of each of these interactions, I like to picture that little frog sitting in my lap, I think of my mom, and I am reminded I am never far from the cure to my hurt, to becoming whole again.