Don’t Come Back

1. The duality of creation and chaos governs both mythology and personal memory

One god to keep things out, and another to bring them in.

Mythological foundations. The author frames her personal and national history through the lens of Muisca mythology, where creation and destruction are inextricably linked. The gods Chiminigagua (light) and Bachué (motherhood and chaos) represent the dual forces that govern Colombian life. This duality mirrors the author's childhood, where her father built barriers to keep out the violence of the outside world while her mother sliced open dead hamsters to reveal the inner workings of life.

Order versus chaos. The tension between the civilizing god Bochica and the rebellious goddess Huitaca reflects the political and social instability of Colombia. The author uses these myths to explain the psychological landscape of a country caught between the desire for order and the irresistible pull of chaotic, violent freedom.

The dual reality. Growing up in Colombia meant navigating the physical threat of guerrilla warfare and the domestic intimacy of family life. The author's mother, a biologist, taught her children to look closely at dead things to understand the world, establishing a lifelong habit of dissecting trauma to find meaning.

• Chiminigagua: The first god who breathed light into a dark universe, creating stars from the feathers of black birds.
• Bachué: The mother goddess who emerged from Lake Iguaque to populate the earth and eventually returned to the water as a snake.
• The dual reality: A childhood spent navigating the physical threat of guerrilla warfare and the domestic intimacy of family life.

2. The trauma of displacement creates a painful rift between leaving and returning

She pulled me close and told me, 'There’s nothing here for you, Lina. Don’t come back.'

The trauma of departure. The author's journey through international airports serves as a physical manifestation of the psychological baggage carried by Colombian emigrants. Interrogations in Miami evoke memories of a childhood spent in cities ticking with car bombs, drug cartels, and military helicopters. The physical act of sweating under the suspicious gaze of border agents mirrors the internal fever of a past that cannot be unpacked or left behind.

The paradox of return. While her dying aunt begs her to return to Bogotá, her mother delivers the devastating ultimatum to stay away. This conflict highlights the painful rift experienced by the diaspora, who are caught between the duty to remember their roots and the necessity of survival.

The weight of history. The author's personal history is deeply intertwined with the violent legacy of the drug wars. The memory of Cali in the nineties, with its sudden military raids and the capture of cartel leaders, remains a constant presence in her life, shaping her interactions with authority and her sense of belonging.

• The Cali Cartel: Memories of the 1995 capture of Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela and the sudden appearance of soldiers.
• The airport interrogation: A humiliating ritual where the author's body is treated as a potential vessel for contraband.
• The maternal warning: A heartbreaking rejection meant to protect the daughter from the cyclical violence of her homeland.

3. The myth of the hero is a heavy burden passed down through generations of family ghosts

If I could count the times I spoke with my father, I would only need one hand.

The phantom patriarch. The author's grandfather, the Colonel, is a legendary figure whose death in a plane crash cast a long shadow over three generations of women. His life was defined by military duty and the violent suppression of early rebel movements, while his death was preceded by a series of ominous, prophetic animal deaths. The family preserves his memory in a literal trunk under the bed, filled with rusted razors, medals, and a folded silk flag.

The decay of memory. The physical preservation of the Colonel's belongings contrasts sharply with the reality of his decomposing legacy. When his body was exhumed, he was found miraculously intact, resisting the natural order of decay just as his family resists letting go of his ghost.

The inheritance of absence. The Colonel's absence shaped the lives of his daughters, who were forced to raise themselves in the shadow of his memory. This legacy of absent fathers and strong, grieving mothers is passed down to the author, who struggles to connect with her own father.

• The Colonel's crash: A fatal descent on a Sunday that triggered a chain of tragic coincidences, including the deaths of his closest military friends.
• The "Dead Man's Coffer": A trunk containing the mundane and sacred relics of a father who was rarely present in life.
• The exhumation: The grotesque reality of bone and leather shrinking over time, forcing the family to confront the limits of preservation.

4. Childhood fears are often pedagogical tools designed to prepare us for real-world monsters

A baleful abuse of the first education [...] to force him to fear that which does not exist.

The utility of terror. In Colombia, fear is not merely an emotion but a pedagogical tool used by parents to keep children safe from real-world dangers. The author's grandmother used the myth of "El Coco" (the bogeyman) and "The Man with the Sack" to enforce obedience, mapping imaginary monsters onto the very real destitute men roaming the streets of Chía. This conflation of myth and reality prepared the children for a world where violence was both arbitrary and expected.

The transmission of fear. The author admits to passing this legacy of terror down to her younger sister, Daniela, by locking her in a dark bathroom until she screamed. This act of cruelty was driven by a belief in "original fear"—the conviction that a child must be taught to fear the dark to survive the real monsters waiting in the shadows of a nation in conflict.

The reality of the faceless. The childhood fear of the bogeyman is eventually replaced by the terrifying reality of the "faceless judges" and masked men of the drug wars. The author realizes that the monsters her grandmother invented were merely placeholders for the very real, systemic violence that threatened their daily existence.

• El Coco: A shifting, terrifying entity that represents the ultimate threat of abduction and erasure.
• Faceless Judges: The terrifying reality of anonymous magistrates during the drug wars, represented in the author's mind as men with blank, question-mark faces.
• The pedagogy of panic: Using imaginary terrors as training wheels for the brutal realities of Colombian society.

5. The loss of innocence is inevitable in a society defined by systemic neglect and boredom

And that’s the part that worries me, you know? That there is really nothing to do with your turn, even when it comes.

The apathy of youth. The author's adolescence in experimental schools outside Bogotá was marked by a profound sense of boredom and unregulated social hierarchies. Classmates like "El Tenjano" and Clara drifted into the drug trade not out of grand ambition, but because there was simply nothing else to do. The school environment, free of traditional structure, became a breeding ground for casual cruelty and early exposure to the illicit economies of the country.

The vulnerability of the marginalized. The author's visit to an HIV shelter for young girls reveals the stark class divisions and the tragic consequences of systemic neglect. The girls, desperate for a connection to the glamorous world they see on television, mistake the author for a member of a popular girl band, highlighting their profound isolation and the fragility of their hopes.

The illusion of choice. A generation of youth caught between the boredom of the provinces and the violent allure of the black market. The author's classmates are forced to navigate a world where survival often requires complicity in the very systems that oppress them.

• The drug trade: Classmates disappearing into the cocaine distribution network, treated as masterminds and brokers before being expelled or arrested.
• The HIV shelter: A public project turned private prison where young girls are left to navigate their terminal illnesses in isolation.
• The illusion of choice: A generation of youth caught between the boredom of the provinces and the violent allure of the black market.

6. National trauma is cyclical, rooted in foundational acts of collective violence

We did not come here to steal, but to destroy.

The spark of the Bogotazo. The assassination of the populist leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on April 9, 1948, is presented as the foundational trauma of modern Colombia. The author reconstructs the final moments of Gaitán and his assassin, Juan Roa Sierra, who was brutally lynched by an angry mob. This event unleashed "La Violencia," a decade of unspeakable sectarian bloodshed that permanently altered the country's social landscape.

The anatomy of a mob. The destruction of Bogotá during the riots was not driven by a desire for plunder, but by a desperate, nihilistic urge to dismantle the physical structures of an oppressive state. The author compares this historical rage to the contemporary violence she witnessed on the streets of Bogotá, where social cleansing groups and vigilantes continue to enforce their own brutal justice.

The legacy of La Violencia. The displacement of millions and the birth of the guerrilla movements that would terrorize the country for decades. The author's family history is deeply marked by this period, with her grandfather, the Colonel, leading early military strikes against the nascent FARC.

• April 9, 1948: The day the capital burned, leaving over five thousand dead and inaugurating a legacy of endless civil conflict.
• Juan Roa Sierra: A delusional young man who believed he was the reincarnation of General Santander, used as a scapegoat for a nation's collective fury.
• The legacy of La Violencia: The displacement of millions and the birth of the guerrilla movements that would terrorize the country for decades.

7. Family names and physical grief are inherited vessels that preserve the memory of the dead

Names like rooms in a hotel—vacancies, quotas, and checkouts.

The recycling of names. In the author's family, names are treated as inherited vessels, passed down from the dead to the living to fill the void left by sudden tragedies. Her father was named after "the first Jaime," an uncle who died at nineteen after jumping from a moving train. This practice creates a confusing, overlapping lineage where the living are constantly forced to carry the weight of ancestral ghosts.

The physical toll of survival. The author's aunt Chiqui, who spent her life caring for her widowed mother, faces her own slow death from cancer and lupus. The physical decay of her body, culminating in the amputation of her toes, mirrors the slow, painful dismantling of the family's matriarchal structure.

The burden of inheritance. The living are forced to carry the weight of ancestral ghosts, living in the shadow of those who died too young. The author's family history is a series of vacancies and checkouts, where each new generation is expected to fill the space left by the dead.

• The first Jaime: A simple, beloved boy whose tragic leap from a train left his mother permanently broken.
• The naming cycle: A desperate attempt to cheat death by reusing the names of those who died too young.
• The physical decay: The grotesque reality of illness and amputation, treated by the family with a mixture of dark humor and profound grief.

8. The absurdity of survival requires desperate, often grotesque rituals to preserve human dignity

It’s like falling asleep. Just like it.

The logistics of mortality. The story of Yaneth, the nurse who smuggled her mother's corpse across Colombian highways, highlights the absurd and often illegal measures required to honor the dying wishes of the poor. To avoid the bureaucratic nightmare of transporting a body, Yaneth pretended her dead mother was merely sleeping in the backseat of a Renault 12, navigating military checkpoints with a corpse propped up beside her.

The preservation of dignity. This act of desperate love reveals the lengths to which Colombians will go to ensure their loved ones are buried in their native soil. The physical preservation of the body, achieved by Yaneth injecting formaldehyde into her mother's thighs in a quiet bedroom, becomes a sacred ritual of defiance against a system that treats the poor as statistics.

The reality of loss. The author's grandmother, suffering from senility, is unable to comprehend the deaths around her, while her nurse, Yaneth, finds comfort in the belief that her mother's death was as simple as falling asleep. This contrast highlights the different ways we construct narratives to survive the absurdity of loss.

• Concepción Dolores: A mother who refused to die in the cold capital of Bogotá, demanding to be returned to the warm rivers of Chiriguaná.
• The Renault 12: A cramped, rattling vehicle turned hearse, carrying a daughter and her dead mother across six hundred kilometers of dangerous roads.
• The ritual of preservation: The intimate, terrifying act of a daughter embalming her own mother to ensure a proper burial.

9. The pull of the homeland is an inescapable gravity that eventually demands our return

Sometimes, I think, you really shouldn’t come back. [...] What is here left for you? Just to watch us die.

The gravity of the origin. The book culminates in the author's inevitable return to Colombia, despite her visa struggles in the United States and her mother's explicit warnings. This return is framed by the myth of El Dorado and the Cacica of Guatavita, who plunged into a sacred lake to escape her husband's cruelty. The author's return is not a triumphant homecoming, but a quiet surrender to the gravity of her homeland.

The tragedy of witnessing. Returning to Bogotá means confronting the imminent deaths of her aunt and grandmother, and accepting her place in a family defined by survival and loss. The author realizes that her attempts to build a life in a foreign country were merely temporary escapes from a past that was always waiting to pull her back under.

The myth of return. The author's return is a quiet surrender to the gravity of her homeland, where she must accept her place in a family defined by survival and loss. The book ends with the realization that some things cannot be left behind, and that the only way to understand the present is to return to the place where the pain began.

• The myth of Guatavita: A story of sacrifice and gold that mirrors the author's own descent into the painful realities of her family history.
• The return flight: A dark, silent journey back to the El Dorado airport, where her parents wait to welcome her back to a country they tried to help her escape.
• The acceptance of fate: The realization that some things cannot be left behind, and that the only way to understand the present is to return to the place where the pain began.

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