Hi, everyone
This is my entry to the #freewrite 5-minute exercise hosted by @mariannewest. See details here.

Remember that Day 1000 of the daily #FreeWrite prompt is approaching and they have promised prizes and surprises.!

Natural Remedies

My mother belongs to a generation that trusts natural medicines with their lives. For her, natural medicines can be more effective than modern drugs; they can also be more dangerous. In fact, my mother lost her father to what we might call NMM (natural medicine malpractice) when she was only 9. To the lack of precision in the dosage you have to add some quirky rituals and superstitions involved in the process, from the procurement of the ingredients to the preparation and the application of the treatment.

Most of my childhood memories involve some home-made remedy either because I was sick or someone else in the house was. Back in the 70s my hometown did not have a real hospital (not much has changed since). If we were seriously ill, we had to be taken to El Pilar (35 mins drive S-E), Rio Caribe (35 mins drive N-E) or Carupano (70 mins drive). That was if you were lucky enough to have a car available to take you. In most case, no matter how serious it was (snake bite, fracture, delivery of a baby, kidney stones, etc.) you had to trust the local healer and light candles to the right saint.

[End of five minutes]

Seven of my mother’s eight deliveries happened at home; none of them were easy, including mine, after which she said to have “died” for 12 hours. All the complications had to be treated with natural medicine. Thus, we have to give it to those who came up with the right plant/seed/fruit/root/animal/rock or combination of those. Throughout her live, my mother accumulated and mentally compiled the natural medicine wisdom of her grandmother, her comadre and midwife, along with a natural instinct she developed to intuit the use of certain plants.

She once told me she had been suffering of a certain illness and after several days of excruciating pain she begged for some sort of illumination. She gathered all her strength and wander around the garden touching every plant, weed, or bush until she FELT it. She grabbed a bunch of leaves from the plant that somehow had revealed its healing powers to her, boiled it in a pot and drank from it. She told me she was better the same day.

Despite all her successes with natural medicine, though (I myself was cured of several illnesses during the 18 years I lived under her roof), my mother never got over the loss of her father, and even though she was only 9, I guess she blames herself for not having been big enough to monitor his treatment. My grandfather had had a tooth pulled. He was a hard working man, with the biggest of hearts. He ran a grocery store that provided basic supplies for the townspeople as well as for those who lived in the hills surrounding the town. He would give away shoes or food to anyone in need. The thankful ones would repay him eventually at least in kind (fruits, vegetables, farm animals), other would just disappear from their lives; but my grandfather never paid too much attention to that.

After he had his tooth pulled (no dentists, no anesthesia) he did not rest as it was advised. A hemorrhage occurred and someone gave them a natural remedy that involved a lime slightly heated over the fire. According the healer the lime had to be heated without allowing it to break. Then, it had to be robbed around the jaw. If it did break and the juices were spilled, it had to be discarded. Apparently whoever administered the remedy did not pay much attention to that last detail. My grandfather died the next day.

Coincidentally, two days ago I talked to her about this. I had given a notebook to her some time ago in order for her to start writing all the natural remedies she knows about. She had not done it. She promised me she will. It may be difficult, though to procure some of the ingredients. Many of the plants she knew about when young have disappeared from our towns and most are harder to get by in cities.

It will be nice, though, to have all her wisdom and stories compiled. Chicken soup for my soul and probably for hers as well.

Thanks for your visit