“Mãe, when I need you, you are always studying.”
Maria Gisela Machado looked at her five-year-old son and held her breath. Her lungs felt like they were filling with water and her chest swelled. Trying to swallow the emotional knot in her throat, she kept her tears from rushing forward.
How could someone so small hold so much hurt in one sentence, a hurt she caused.
The past decade had been filled with hard decisions and self-sacrifice. From leaving home at fourteen and following her dream of becoming a teacher, to abandoning that dream by leaving the small islands of the Açores, along with her friends and family, to move to America. It was not an easy decision, but with Portugal on the brink of a violent revolution, Maria was suddenly faced with the harsh reality that to protect her family, she’d have to leave it all.
In America, Maria worked three jobs to sustain the family. The years of scrubbing floors and dusting shelves from two of those jobs left her joints a numbing sore. Combined with the verbal abuse and hours spent on her feet tending to patients as a nurse, she felt an aching pulse overtake her whole body when she finally lay still in bed. But even those nights never seemed to last long enough before she had to get up in the morning and do it all again.
Her only saving grace those past two years was the degree she’d been working towards to teach once again, but even that brought its troubles. One of them standing in front of her with sad, round eyes and a quivering voice.
“Mãe?”
How could she do this? A mother, a student, and a worker? It’s impossible!
Maria let out the breath she’d been holding in a tired sigh. Bruno was supposed to be in bed, but now he was there, illuminated by the soft glow of her desk light. She looked between her son and the never-ending assignments that littered her desk, the ones that called for her attention the minute she got home and kept her up all hours of the night. The real trouble, keeping her from being the mother they needed.
Maria put on a smile to hide the sharp pain in her back as she slowly stood up from the chair, walking Bruno back to bed.
“I’m here now, meu querido.”
As she tucked her son back into bed, bringing the covers to tuck under his chin, she saw a small contagious smile creep on his face and couldn’t help but smile back.
This shouldn’t be the only time I get to see him smile like this. Something needs to change.
When Maria puts her mind to something, it happens. Her stubbornness was something both feared and admired by others. In this case, it led her to turn off that haunting desk lamp and set her alarm for 1 a.m.
The moment Maria’s alarm went off, she sat up and slowly stepped out of bed, trying to not wake up her husband in the process. Grabbing the two pillows she slept with, she stepped as lightly as possible into the cramped bathroom, the cold, tiled floor helping her to slowly wake up. Across the toilet, she placed one pillow on the ground, and the other against the wall and for six hours, studied for class. By 7 a.m, she had enough of her work done in time, to wake up little Bruno and his siblings for school.
The lost sleep Maria sacrificed for those mornings with the kids was nothing compared to the looks on their faces when they realized she was there, making them breakfast. So despite the agonizing exhaustion Maria had over those next seven years studying for her degree, mothering her children, and working physically demanding jobs, she wouldn’t have changed any of it because the look on her son’s face and the smile that he wore made it all worth it.
I admire my avó (grandma) so much. I’ll always remember her nurturing home and the sugar covered strawberries she would feed me (even when I was sick and not supposed to). Her resilience in the pursuit of her own personal goals while also providing for a family both financially and emotionally has inspired me to keep going despite all the struggles I may face. I am so proud of her and want her to be memorialized for the strong, independent woman she is, even if she isn’t always acknowledged for her hard work and dedication from all those years ago. Maria Gisela Machado may not be a well-known name, but it should be along with all the other mother-student-workers out there, starting their days at 1 a.m. and trying to do it all.
Emily Machado is an Azorean writer from central California with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Film & Media Studies and a minor in Professional Editing from UC Santa Barbara. They have experience as a copy editor for the student-run newspaper and a co-leader of the T.V. Writers’ Room club at UCSB. They’re currently working on a variety of different projects, but they are most proud of a pilot episode they created for an original serialized sitcom T.V. series they hold very near to their heart. Emily loves storytelling and knows that no matter where she goes, she wants to be a part of the storytelling process.
Stories Matters is a mentoring program founded by best-selling author and award-winning documentarian Leslie Zemeckis. Co-sponsored by the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) and ENTITY Mag, the writing program focuses on craft and confidence. Guest professional female authors join weekly, mentoring the next generation of female storytellers. A six-week intensive challenges every writer to work on an 800-word story about “A Woman You Should Know.”
