It Takes a Village to Raise a Mother
BY SIGRID GARAVITO
he afternoon
my car was hit
on the way to
soccer practice with my son Eros, I remember the sound before the pain, that sickening crunch of metal that slices through a normal day. No one was hurt, but the moment lingered like an echo. In the days, weeks and months that followed, I found myself navigating not just the wreckage, but the endless calls and polite dismissals from an insurance company eager to “make things right” with fresh paint and polished chrome, while the deeper damage, the structural kind, the kind you hear and feel, went ignored.
It wasn’t just the car that felt misaligned.
It was me.
Shortly after the accident, Eros, my oldest son, my strong, athletic first-born, was injured at the start of his high school varsity season and soon had to face ACL surgery. The same child who walked at seven months, who rarely sat still, who once kept me up through endless days and nights, was suddenly confined to crutches, a brace and ice packs. His spirit dulled by the frustration of forced stillness and no Junior Varsity stats, mine by the weight of watching him struggle not just physically but mentally.
T