I Hugged a Jacaranda Tree and Bid You Farewell: A Holistic Approach to Give Loving Closure to an Abortion Experience

By ANGÉLICA SÁNCHEZ

I hugged a Jacaranda tree and bid you farewell. A holistic approach to the emotional process undergone to give loving closure to an abortion I deeply feel that sharing the path that led me to leave behind an abortion experience will not only help me but all those women and men that carry a hidden, forgotten, silenced abortion experience within their hearts and wish to turn it into self-discovery and personal growth. Angelica Snchez

This book was presented at the National Symposium of Thanatology 2011, Centro Mdico Nacional, siglo XXI, Mxico.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palibrio
• Release date: Aug 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781463330361

ANGÉLICA SÁNCHEZ

“As a girl I invented tales and together with my father played and dreamed I would be a writer. The day came my father died and nobody paid attention to my stories. I packed my dreams and…..time went by. The day I turned 50 I sold my advertising agency and left for the Sonoran desert to start writing. Nowadays I enjoy living in peace and as I please: stroll among the trees, chuckle with my friends, light an incense in the morning, listen to soft music and write. In this easy going and slightly organized life I have published the novels She decided to be a hippy at 50 ( ISC Novel Award 1999). Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps (UNISON, 2001). Vainilla (Amarillo Editores, 2009). If they don’t hear you shout… yell (A play for Nuestras hijas de regreso a casa, 2006). I hugged a Jacaranda tree and bid you farewell. (Círculos de Agüita, 2011) I am a Colegio de la Sociedad General de Escritores de México (SOGEM) graduate, hold a degree in Hispanic Literature from the Universidad de Sonora and a Postgraduate in Literature from the University of Arizona. Angélica Sánchez Visit my site: http://hippiealos50.wordpress.com/

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Copyright © 2012 by Angélica Sánchez.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012909794

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4633-3037-8

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4633-3036-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Portrait design: Jorge El Cejas

Portrait painting: Mary Tere Heredia Rubio

Author photo: Juan España

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Palibrio

1663 Liberty Drive, Suite 200

Bloomington, IN 47403

Fax: [phone]

[e-mail]

371319

To all those women and men that

carry a hidden, forgotten, silenced

abortion within their hearts.

To Jacaranda.

Contents

1 A farewell letter

2 Closing circles

3 A holistic approach to give loving closure to an abortion experience

Epilogue Summarized guide on how to close circles

Also published by Angelica Sanchez

1

A farewell letter

Dear Jacaranda:

I have been trying for months to write this letter but it is not until today that I can. Days went by and not a single word flowed from my pen. A letter should be addressed to someone and I didn’t even know if you were someone. I didn’t know your name or where you came from, if you existed or had ever existed.

Besides, how do I say good bye to someone I had not had in mind for forty years? In an effort to be sincere I should say: someone I had never thought about, not even on the day the doctor told me you were in my womb. The shock was such that it froze my neurons with the same cold air that emanates from fear. I could not think about anything, I could not think of you…

I felt your presence would blow up all my dreams: dancing, singing, painting flowers on my face, spending some years in Tibet, being a writer, and fighting for a better world.

Although I had a couple of weeks to decide between keeping or erasing you from my life, time was not a problem, the decision was crystal clear from day one: go ahead with whatever is needed to leave things as they used to be. And so it was done.

After that, the abortion experience was frozen as if it had never happened. My life apparently went back to normal.

Forty years had to go by for me to discover that nothing was as it had been before. Nothing ever remains as it was in the river of life.

A year ago, without any warning, you reemerged in the midst of a soul healing course. It was then when I discovered you were still there. Even though I separated you from my body, you remained in my existence. Maybe dumped under a heap of arguments, straying through my emotions, or ignored in a dark corner of my unconscious. But there you were.

Your presence had been so subtle that I never perceived you before, notwithstanding the many therapies I under-

went for years. My denial must have been as deep as my inability to face the reality you represented.

But there you were and once again you placed me at the crossroads of a decision: allow you to wander adrift within my inner world or close the circle. Would it be worthwhile to invest time and emotional energy to close the cycle of such an old issue?

2

Closing circles

We must learn to heal

the wounds caused by

changes, when someone

leaves, when something

is over, when we don’t

have what we used to have

or believed we had.

Jorge Bucay

Is it worthwhile to close the circle?

When I asked myself this question I remembered the handwriting exercises we practiced in school to master writing. We had to trace chains of circles as we jingled: This circle that rolls is a tiny train that won’t stop. Singing and scribbling circles we filled page after page of our handwriting notebook until the school year was over and we had acquired fine penmanship. In this same way we go about filling the notebook of