El acto de extrañar

The Act of Missing.
To Miss. To be apart from that which resides within you.

I began documenting the spaces and personal belongings of missing women in 2005, based on the missing persons reports I found in the streets of downtown Ciudad Juárez. They were poorly copied papers, with their names, physical characteristics, and a photo. Every time I looked at them, I was left speechless, deeply moved. Since that moment, I have not stopped feeling that emptiness.

The first cases of women I documented, curiously, were women my age. Visiting their rooms made me remember who I was a few years ago. The mothers would look at me for a long time and talk about their daughters as if I were an old friend. I tried to construct an image, to bring together memories to get to know them.

They showed me photos, clothes, and sometimes I could even smell the scent on a piece of clothing. I had never seen so much pain in a person: as if missing their daughters unfolded the present into the past, over and over again, as the only way to hold on to love.   

To this day, I continue documenting everything surrounding the disappearance of women in Ciudad Juárez. The place has become a personal map, drawn with possible paths of all of them. I imagine them walking there: I never stop searching for features or faces in people who may resemble the young women who have not returned home. I always wonder where they could be.

I wish I could say “I’m deeply sorry.” To repeat it over and over, almost like a prayer, hoping the sadness will go away. But I know that nothing will change. So, I’ve only found this way to accompany the women who shared with me the last memories of their daughters. I wish I could tell them that I have learned to miss with them, that for a long time I’ve felt incomplete, that they’ve made me understand what it means to love through the depth of memory. And that I no longer think of the word “death,” because I’ve come to realize that missing someone, when you love them, is far more eternal than death.

                                                                                                       Mayra Martell