Restoring La Maceta

Restoring La Maceta

There’s a metaphor for grief that describes the healing process as gluing a broken flower pot or in Spanish – una maceta – back together after it breaks. The pot will never look or function the same as it did before it was broken – just as a family will never look or function the same as it did before the death of a loved one. 

Centro Sanar seeks to challenge the traditional medicalized culture of mental health and trauma care. The organization’s clinicians’ accompany community members in their journeys to heal and thrive by providing consistent and continual free mental health services, trauma care and case management, all rooted in restorative and collective practices of care. 

In this episode of Change Agents, producer Grace Del Vecchio unpacks the instrumental role the organization played in one family’s long and complicated healing journey after the death of their son and brother to homicide in 2017. 

Produced by Grace Del Vecchio
Voiceovers by Richie Requena and Gk Kay

Transcript

Executive Producer - Judith McCray: [00:00:00] Welcome to Change Agents. The podcast series, looking at grassroots actions and solutions from the inside out real people, making real changes in communities of color and others, right where they live and work. Stories about folks transforming their neighborhoods and the narratives about them.

Itzuri: When we're in a song that we still play, because it reminds us of him, it's Mi Ultimo Deseo. The song is basically just, uh, speaking about loss. If I ever die one day, like the guy, the singer is, if I [00:01:00] ever die one day, like. I want you guys to remember me through, you know, with happiness and like me partying and having a good time.

And that always just resonated with him. Right. Cause that was always him. That's why that song, every time I hear that song, it reminds me of him.

Grace DelVecchio: His full name was Adrian Michel Cano. But depending on your relationship with him, he'd introduce himself differently. When speaking to his family about him, they would either refer to him as Adrian or Michel. But to his friends, he was mostly known as Cano. How do you think he would like to be referred to in this podcast?

Itzuri: Cano. 

Grace DelVecchio: That's Itzuri, [00:02:00] his younger sister. Cano. 

Itzuri: Mm hmm. Yes, for sure. That's his, like, that's how he would introduce himself to people. Which is so weird. Come on, that's your last name. He just really liked it, I guess. 

Grace DelVecchio: He was widely beloved by the people who knew him. He had the unparalleled ability to bring life into every space he entered.

He was a soccer player, a good one, and an avid chivas aficionado. He was a son, and a brother. On September 15th, 2017, Cano was shot and killed in Chicago's southwest side neighborhood of Brighton Park. He was 21 years old. His sudden death forced his family to face a level of grief they had never expected they'd have to navigate.

There's a metaphor for grief that describes the healing process as a gluing a broken flower pot, or in Spanish, una maceta, [00:03:00] back together after it breaks. The pot will never look or function the way it did before it was broken, just as a family will never look or function the same as it did before the death of a loved one.

This story is about that, and a family's long, arduous path to healing, in picking up the pieces to create a new and different mosaic of a life, after losing their son and brother. I'm Grace DelVecchio, and this It's restoring La Maceta. Cano was the oldest of three children, survived by his younger sisters Itzuri and Ashanti, who were both still teenagers when he passed.

Itzuri and I are about the same age, both in our early 20s. She's cool, collected, and sharp, and at the time of this interview, she had recently dyed the single streak of blonde's hair above her right ear a vibrant blue. She wore an oversized navy blue crew neck with a Yale University logo [00:04:00] printed across the front.

Her dogs, Benji and Gigi, as well as her boisterous one year old daughter, intermittently joined us throughout the interview as we sat around her family's kitchen table. In September of 2017, Itzuri was a regular 19 year old. She knew she wanted to go to college, and while at the time, she hadn't decided on a major, she was interested in criminal justice.

September 15th started out as a normal Friday. Itzuri was accompanying a friend who was getting a haircut from his cousin. As the two parked the car, Itzuri's friend received a call that Cano, her brother, had been shot. 

Itzuri: I remember I heard sirens in that moment, like ambulance sirens. And I was just like, Oh my gosh, like, could that be him?

I called my family and I said, we're like, are you guys like lying to me right now? And they said, no, like it's right here. So then we drove to, um, where it had happened. So down 47th and like California. And sure enough, like there was just so [00:05:00] many people on the scene. I mean, just. Citizens and then there was detectives and then there was Police officers and they had already taped everything off and in the moment.

We didn't know If my brother was even there Right. It was probably like two hours later where um a detective came up to me and told me hey, are you do you think you're comfortable enough to to um Let me know if you can identify who your brother is and I said You I said, no, I can't do that. I was like, cause at that point it was, I just had a feeling like, okay, this is him.

So his friends were there too. When I told one of his friends, like, Hey, like, do you think you can do this for us, for the family? Cause we're not, we can't do it. Um, and yeah. 

Grace DelVecchio: That fall, Edwin Martinez, a clinical social worker based on Chicago Southwest [00:06:00] side. Received a call from one of Cano former high school teachers.

She told him Cano had been killed. She knew Edwin worked with victims of trauma. and asked him if he could help the family. A week later, Edwin met with Cano's parents, Lina and Gerardo Aguilar, as well as Cano's younger sister, Ashanti. 

Lina Aguilar: I wasn't 

really all that well in my head at the time, honestly. I didn't think much about it.

I was drowning in pain. When we started with the therapy, I was able to react to it just a little bit.

Grace DelVecchio: That's Lina. She's reflecting on those first pivotal therapy sessions that It took place soon after meeting Edwin.

Lina Aguilar: And then we felt it, and he helped us. I mean, I say he helped me because if I didn't, if I didn't have that therapy, I would have been worse. Sometimes I tell him, there were times I would have wanted, like, a psychiatrist. [00:07:00] I feel that way sometimes, but yeah, we have felt good with Edwin. 

Pero, pero si, si nos hemos 

Grace DelVecchio: For the first two years of working with the family, Edwin wore many hats.

He still does. He was their first therapist, case manager, social worker, and all around supporter. Centro Sanar seeks to challenge the traditionalized, medicalized culture of mental health and trauma care. The organization's clinicians accompany community members in their journeys to heal and thrive by providing consistent and continual free mental health services,

trauma care, and case management, all rooted in restorative and collective practices of care. Centro Sanar has played a major role in the family's healing journey the last five years. But even with someone like Edwin supporting their family and having access to therapy, grief and healing aren't linear processes.

It took Itzuri over two years to be ready to address her grief, to [00:08:00] really understand what it meant for her. 

Itzuri: At the time it was um I think it was a little too fresh. Not it not only was it fresh for me, but I still hadn't processed what what had went on it wasn't until two three years later that everything had kind of just Like just I I at that time like everything like I processed it. It took so much time 

Grace DelVecchio: She was fortunate to have Edwin and Centro Sanar to reach out to 

Itzuri: You're trying to seek help, and you know that this is the right thing for you to do, but you don't know how to go about it, because it's the first time it's ever happened. None of our family has ever gone to therapy.

So, it would have been so tough trying to figure out, Okay, who do I call? Who do I even go to? So I think that would have been even more, that would have been a burden, not a burden, but it would just, would have made the process even more difficult.

Grace DelVecchio: Healing after the loss of a son [00:09:00] is an incomprehensible process, even more distressing when his death was a homicide. In the United States, crime victims and their families are entitled to certain services. These services, if accessed by victims and their families, can help alleviate external pressures that are inhibiting their healing processes.

However, actually getting these services comes with a lot of red tape. The Illinois Crime Victims Compensation Program was established by the Illinois General Assembly in 1973. It uses a combination of state and federal funding to reimburse victims of violent crimes and their families for injury and funeral related expenses.

The program has its flaws, and victims, advocates, mental health clinicians, and elected officials alike have been critics of it since its inception. claiming that it doesn't help crime victims and their families enough. Beyond that, many people don't even know the program exists in the first place, and the application itself is lengthy and requires extensive documentation.[00:10:00] 

Gerardo Aguilar: At that time, we didn't really know. Didn't really know, like, how they're doing now, how the government could help us out. We didn't know that either. We were not that lost. 

Grace DelVecchio: That's Gerardo. 

Gerardo Aguilar: After all that and with some time, a co worker asked me, you didn't ask for help from the government after your son's death?

And I told him no. He said the government is supposed to compensate you and to help you. 

Grace DelVecchio: In addition to all this, the compensation is a reimbursement, not a grant, meaning that victims have to pay for expenses out of pocket and then send receipts to the Attorney General's office, which would then reimburse them.

In analyzing records from the program, a 2021 investigation by The Trace found that from 2015 to 2020, one application was filed for every 50 violent crimes in Chicago. Less than 40 percent of [00:11:00] applicants were reimbursed with an average reimbursement of a mere $4,400. It also found that thousands of claims are marked as award no pay.

This means that its applicants were deemed eligible for the program but didn't respond to the office's letter by the 30 day deadline and thus didn't complete the process within the two year time frame. Connell's family was one of the many that fell through the program's cracks. Like many other families, the letter from the Attorney General's office was overlooked, and by the time Edwin helped the family figure out what went wrong, the two year deadline was too close to rectify the situation.

But even if the family had known to apply for the reimbursement within the two year deadline, the funds were for short term costs. Dr. Catherine Bocanegra is an assistant professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, Jane Addams School of Social Work. She has over 15 years of experience in community mental health.

community violence prevention, and criminal justice reform. She's also been a [00:12:00] member of Centro Sanar's board since its founding. She says the victim's compensation program doesn't consider families ongoing trauma related struggles. 

Dr. Catherine Bocanegra: It's when they think about the experiences of families who've been impacted by violence.

We think it's just like the act and dealing with that act. that impacts somebody. So the loss and that like the only trauma they experience, we think is associated with losing a family member due to violent death. But no, then you're adding layers and layers of trauma on top of that. 

Grace DelVecchio: Financial compensation was but one hurdle the family faced.

Cano's parents, Lina and Gerardo, aren't U. S. citizens. As immigrants who were qualified victims of a crime, Cano's They're eligible for a U Visa that allows them to stay in the country legally and provides a path to a green card. The U Visa is free, but the process is complicated, and a visa is not guaranteed.

One major problem for immigrants without [00:13:00] documentation is the requirement of involving the police. Daisy Dominguez is an immigrant attorney who devotes a large portion of her practice to helping people apply for U Visas. She met Lina and Gerardo in 2021 after Edwin referred them to her. 

Daisy Dominguez: There is a huge fear of an immigrant going to a police station, right?

Because the last thing they want to do is be around a police officer who might ask them about their immigration status. And if it comes out that they are documented, that the police is going to report them to immigration. There have been laws that have been passed. To protect immigrants and to, to create that comfort of knowing that you can go to the police and be still protected, right?

That the police is not cooperating with immigration, at least not here in Chicago. And so we're trying to also educate communities that you can go to the police. They're not going to question you about your immigration status, or if they do, they are not going to be cooperating with ICE officials.

Grace DelVecchio: Certification is at the discretion of law enforcement. [00:14:00] Applicants have six months to submit their U Visa application before their certification expires, and recertification is not guaranteed. After filing their application, there are still numerous steps to complete, including a job permit application and a waiver requesting forgiveness for immigration violations.

In May, one year after Edwin's referral, Daisy successfully completed Lina and Gerardo's U Visa applications. Now, the only thing they can do is wait. Which could take years. There are 10, 000 U Visas allotted per year. Once that amount has been awarded, remaining applicants will be pushed to the next year.

According to a June 2022 report from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, there are over 200, 000 U Visa cases still waiting to be adjudicated. While it's likely that there will be more than 10, 000 approved, applicants could still face a wait time of up to five years.[00:15:00] 

For Edwin, the metaphor of the broken maceta isn't just a therapy tool he uses with his clients. He's lived it. From a young age, whenever his family's maceta shattered, Edwin was the glue that restored it. His own lived experiences inform the way he practices trauma care. At just six years old, he witnessed his older cousin be gunned down in a drive by shooting, a fate that would become reality.

When seven years later, Edwin's close friend was gunned down on the way home from their middle school. This homicide took place just months after Edwin's twin brother died of kidney failure. Edwin managed to get good grades and went on to work in policy, but he found that he felt disconnected from the people who are impacted by policies the most.

So he decided to formally go into social work. While getting his master's in social work at the University of Chicago, Chicago. Edwin started working with traumatic loss groups. It was this work where [00:16:00] he found his place. A word that Edwin uses a lot when discussing the values that ground him in his work is compañerismo, or camaraderie, a friendship. A community and world where people look out for each other and care for each other. 

Edwin Martinez: Think about when I grew up, right? Having a Puerto Rican adopted grandmother, having like the folks on the block that would that would support me and things of that nature. And that's part of the reason why I found it since just now is that I wanted to empower myself or just wanted to create something that would allow for one, a legacy for my, for my family and for my, for my kids, but also the context in which like the community can respond and Folks are more connected to each other.

Grace DelVecchio: This compañerismo is evident in his relationship with Cano's family. They speak highly of Edwin and the role he's played in their lives. 

Gerardo Aguilar: With him, we were able to open up more and more and more with him. Well, we really felt towards each other because they were really different. You [00:17:00] understand me? And yeah, Edwin's help was really good.

Grace DelVecchio: I met Cano's family for the first time at the beginning of October. It was warm and sunny. The plants lining the front steps of their home in West Englewood remained outside as Chicago had yet to experience the first freeze of the season. Edward enters the house ahead of me, and they greet him warmly, like he's a member of their family.

Their house is spotless, with a large white leather sectional to my left as I walk in the door. The atmosphere is warm and welcoming. The walls are covered with pictures of the family. In the corner of the room stands a banner that almost touches the ceiling. With lights at its base, shining up at a floor length portrait of Cano in a red bow tie and red vest over a white pressed shirt.

The family is Catholic. From where I sit at the kitchen table to conduct my first official [00:18:00] interview, I look directly up at a portrait of the Last Supper. But ironically, the table is covered in blue placemats with symbols of the Jewish High Holidays. Edwin has become a fixture in their family. He was invited to Ashanti's Quinceañera in Itzuri's daughter's first birthday.

He began working with the family even before he co founded Centro Sanar. He knows them well. They're comfortable with him. But this comfortability took time to develop. Before Cano's death, no one in the family had ever attended any kind of therapy, and they were understandably skeptical. Therapy couldn't bring their son back.

Nothing could. The impacts of grief are all encompassing. It can cause changes to memory, the immune system, behavior, sleep, and body functions. 

Lina Aguilar: But there are moments where I don't know. I don't know if I'm well or not. I forget about things now, after what happened to my son. I was forgetting [00:19:00] about everything.

I remember I was locked up in my home for about a month. I didn't work and I stayed home. My mom came here to live with me, with us. She would say, you need to try and live. You still have two daughters and need to get yourself back to work, to distract yourself.

Grace DelVecchio: This was the case for Lina and Gerardo.

Lina Aguilar: I remember the month I was going back to work. I didn't remember where I was going. I had forgotten about it. I pulled over. I wondered, Where am I going? Where am I going? I didn't know. And since then, I have noticed I'm doing worse and worse and worse. I was a really good student. I understand things really quickly.

And now, I can't. It's difficult for me to understand things. But I know that's the reason why, because I have noticed it. 

Grace DelVecchio: Edwin prepared for this, and called Lina three times to confirm their first meeting. When he showed up at the door, she didn't know who he was. [00:20:00] She'd completely forgotten the appointment.

Edwin Martinez: I ended up first introducing myself with a poem. I'd introduce myself with, My name is Edwin. I'm a therapist. I'm here to support you. I started off with just a poem from another mother. that had lost their son due to a similar matter. And that was my form of engagement right away. And that poem ended up breaking the ice and supporting our relationship.

Grace DelVecchio: These poems became their ritual, a way to begin their sessions by reading the words of people who had shared in their grief and their experiences. 

Gerardo Aguilar: Well in that time, in that time it really hurt. It's been very strong since then. Really, you tend to isolate yourself in those moments because we didn't know what to do in those moments.

And now, thanks to Edwin and the therapy and the conversations we have had with Edwin, we've really been, well, we're not cured all the way yet. You understand me? [00:21:00] We still need a little bit more. What's it called? We need a little bit more focus.

Grace DelVecchio: Gerardo said that while therapy didn't fully cure them of their grief, it made a difference. Bastante nos ayuda, he said. It helped them a lot. 

Gerardo Aguilar: But yeah, the therapy has helped us out a bit. My wife has had a bit more therapy because of what's going on in her head. She isn't in tune, really. There are times when she is angry, and then she's good, and then she's angry again.

And that's what she says. She needs a bit more help. More than anything.

Grace DelVecchio: Lina is not where she was five years ago. She's able to work again, and she happily contributes to the care of Itzuri's daughter, who, just like Cano, [00:22:00] is able to immediately light up any room she crawls into. She's able to be more present for her family. But despite this, there are days where the grief washes over her, just as fresh as it was the day she lost her son.

Lina Aguilar: I think that for me, at this point, it's been I don't know if it's with time I've been doing worse because sometimes I feel I'm doing better, but other times I'm going back to how I was because it still hurts so much. It hurts. Sometimes I'll go outside so they don't have to see me cry or I'll go to work crying, stuff like that because I can't handle it.

It's too much.

Grace DelVecchio: Lena now works with a group that supports mothers of homicide victims. Most of whom are predominantly Mexican and Central American immigrants living on the South and Southwest sides. Lina and Gerardo don't want others to feel the way they did before Edwin entered their [00:23:00] lives. They want other families of homicide victims to have access to the resources that restore their families macetas.

Lina Aguilar: I speak up because it helps others. When what happened to my son happened, there weren't many people that could help us out. We didn't have that support. And now I want to do it because I know what it's like to have your son killed. I want to minimize that pain. 

Por eso yo lo quiero hacer, porque yo sé lo que es el, el que te maten un hijo.

Por eso, como que yo quiero minimizar ese dolor. 

Grace DelVecchio: While Centro Sanar has grown rapidly to meet the needs of community members on the Southwest Side, the organization has a current wait list of 10 months [00:24:00] for new patients. What Centro Sanar can provide alone will never be enough for the entirety of the Southwest Side. To Catherine, the demand for Centro Sanar's services is speaks to a need for larger, wide scale investment in mental health and trauma care across the city.

Dr. Catherine Bocanegra: You need a door for somebody to walk through. That's where you need your community based mental health centers at that first step. And, depending on what's going on, those community mental health centers may say, it looks like you need more specialized care, or somebody who can really work with somebody who understands complex trauma and violence, or somebody who understands.

neurodevelopmental disorders and trauma. Edwin's expertise and the specialty that they have is like under comprehensive understanding of trauma and wraparound care and working with Families that have under, have experienced complex trauma as a result of exposure to violence and they're overwhelmed by the need, they're overwhelmed by the need in their [00:25:00] community, so there needs to be more points of support.

Grace DelVecchio: For Edwin and his colleagues, their work continues, rapidly growing as funding allows, reaching more people, and restoring. 

Edwin Martinez: I see my work as more like a maceta, like a flower pot. When a flower pot falls, right, like, it cracks and breaks and spreads out. My role at that point when I was a kid and at this point right now as a therapist, how do we realign the pieces together?

And it ends up being more of a mosaic flower part than, than not. And the cracks will still be there in the flower product. The glue marks will still be there. There will still be pieces missing. In this case, michelle, michelle will always be missing, right, in the sense of like this. The, there will be a piece missing or the cracks will be there.

This flower pot will learn how to be a pot again, but this family will grow to, to be able to spring other members in a way that's healthy.

Quiero,[00:26:00] 

I want you to hear me without judging me. I want you to comment without advising me. I want you to trust me without demanding things of me. I want you to help me without deciding for me. I want you to take care of me without suffocating me. I want you to look at me without projecting your struggles onto me.

I want you to embrace me without choking me. I want you to encourage me without pushing me. I want you to hold me without infantilizing me. I want you to protect me without lying to me. I want you to approach me without overwhelming me. I want you to acknowledge the parts of me that you dislike the most so you can accept them and not attempt to change them.

I want you to know that I need you by my side, without conditions.[00:27:00] 

I'm Grace DelVecchio, thanks for listening.

Executive Producer - Judith McCray: Thank you for joining Change Agents. The podcast series looking at grassroots actions and solutions from the inside out. Produced by Juneteenth Productions. Theme music composed by Sara Abdallaou. Funding support provided by the Chicago Community Trust, the Field Foundation, and DePaul University's Center for Communication Engagement.

Subscribe to this series on Apple Podcasts Stitcher, [00:28:00] Spotify, and wherever you find podcasts. Follow Change Agents on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the website changeagentsthepodcast.com.