My mother blindly believed in the traditional religion that had been passed down throughout the generations of her family. She married a Catholic man, like her, when she was eighteen. He was harsh to her, and treated her like property of little value. When he drank, which he never did before they married, she feared him. He was horrible to her, but she still clung to the cage of faith that trapped her, and was bound to him through what they call a God-ordained covenant. She would not leave him, no matter how horrible he was to her, and submitted meekly to his every demand.
A year after they married, I was conceived in a drunken, loveless ravage. When my father heard about me, he skipped town and abandoned my mother there in the outskirts of Santiago. She moved back in with her parents, who held the twisted view that my mother’s abandonment was her own fault, that she hadn’t fulfilled her duty as a wife, a help mate created to pander to a man’s every need. I can’t understand why my mother held onto this warped, misogynistic religion that somehow turned the victim into the culprit. But she did, like a child infatuated with some intangible, imaginary friend, she devoutly lit candles and held beads and spoke to the God she naively believed existed.
Despite her fervent devotion, her God did not reward her with a long life. Something went wrong while I was being born, and the last words my mother uttered, before she was radiantly swept into some sort of afterlife, were, “She is Deifilia, daughter of God.”
That’s the story my grandmother told me. My grandfather died just a few years after my mother, and by the time I was eleven, my grandmother was so severely overtaken by Alzheimer’s that she forgot who I was, was frightened by me and threatened me. I was taken to a Catholic orphanage inside the city, where I ate cardboard porridge for every meal and was told to thank God for his generous gift. When I forgot to tuck my shirt into my skirt I was struck across the hand—God’s discipline for unruly children—sinners. I had to memorize countless prayers full of words that meant nothing to me, and recite them several times daily, heartlessly. If my prayers weren’t fervent enough, I was struck again to remind me that I was a sinner unworthy of God’s love. It didn’t matter to me that I didn’t deserve his love—I didn’t even believe in him.
I was lonely. I thought often of how my mother must have been before she died, wondered how she could have possibly believed in this nonsense, believed it enough to call me Deifilia, daughter of God. But I loved her, and I ached for her. I would lie down in my depraved cot at night and imagine her tucking me in and kissing my forehead, whispering my name and telling me goodnight. I thought maybe that was why my mother pretended God was real. Maybe she was lonely. Maybe she knew deep down, in the same way that I knew when I imagined her, that it was all pretend, but it made her feel less lonely to believe that it wasn’t.
I didn’t do well in school. I was constantly being chastised for drifting away in class. I gazed through the window at the looming cathedral just outside the classroom. My eyes roamed the unwelcoming exterior of the cathedral: its mournful stained glass depictions of Mother Mary, a lamb being sacrificed, tiny and fleecy, its helpless, round little underbelly pierced and stained crimson, and the crucified Christ, the monotonous gray stones, the gargoyle perched atop the roof, guarding whatever was sacred inside. I gazed into his stony, vacant eyes, and I recognized him. He was the face of this absurd religion: fearsome, crouching, ready to attack, clawed and fanged, a nonsensical, distorted combination of various beasts, guarding something precious from the outside world, hoarding whatever it was inside that cathedral to which he clung so dearly.
I watched the pigeons perch on the gargoyle and peck around him. They were not afraid, and as I watched them, I thought that if there was a God, surely these darling little creatures were cherished by him. Surely they knew something that the nuns did not. Surely they held some secret in their simple little souls, some clearer understanding of their alleged maker. Surely they were free, and if any creature knew God, it was them. I sat mesmerized by them. One stared right back at me and, as if it knew my thoughts exactly, flew from the shadow of the gargoyle and perched itself on the windowsill over which I was gazing, looked me square in the eye, tilted its tiny, fragile head, and cooed. I gasped, startled, and was struck again.
For the next month, I could not forget the incident. I could not convince myself fully that that pigeon did not have something invaluable to share with me. My curiosity was insatiable. I craved so deeply to know what it was that that monstrous gargoyle guarded. I could think of nothing else.
As I walked up the menacing stone stairs, I felt unwelcome, mortifyingly out of place. I stopped and hesitated, then looked up again to the gargoyle, and the pigeons, and continued. I knew it was preposterous. I knew I only wanted to not feel so lonely, like my mother had, and I was tricking myself. I felt embarrassed by my childishness. How could I possibly even begin to believe that this was real? I stopped again and stared at the menacing doors looming directly ahead of me, warning me to keep out. This was stupid. The whole idea was ridiculous. I was so naïve. But what if? I continued, trembling, and finally made it to the doors. I closed my eyes, and rolled them at my foolishness, then pulled the heavy door slowly. It creaked eerily, but warmly. I stepped inside and the door creaked again to close me in.
The cathedral was empty, and wonderfully silent. I stood in awe of the very vastness of it. The light poured in through the stained glass windows and warmed the whole room with kaleidoscope light, dancing on the floor and walls, and on me. I could feel the sunlight in its drops of color, and I felt warm all over, even inside. I had stopped trembling and stood rapturously still, more still than I had ever been. I felt like I would never be lonely again. I laid down in the very center of the room and stared into the dome of cloudy heavens painted above me. I closed my eyes and began to spin, and the whole cathedral spun with me. We twirled gloriously, elatedly, heavenly. Warmth spilled over me like golden honey, and I felt something lay down beside me and drape a sort of arm across me, kiss my forehead, and I wept. I wept because I was so moved, because they were all so pitifully mislead.
I knew now what my mother must have known: that we are all valued, loved, cherished by this God; that he delights in us, that he made us just the way we are; that we are not meant to be eaten away by guilt and cling to it as if that guilt itself is our salvation. We are meant to be loved. I wept, and sat cradled in this unknown affection. I am Deifilia, daughter of God.
And then I was awakened, three minutes after I was supposed to have risen. I stood up and held out my hand, and she struck me.