ABSTRACT
Drawing on her personal experience, the author describes mourning the loss of her mother, who disappeared in Argentina in 1976. The very concept of disappearance implies that somebody vanishes without a trace and that the perpetrators disavow their actions. This uncertainty makes mourning an abstract task that initially leaves the families deprived of what is necessary to mourn: the recognition of the loss in ceremonies and rituals performed in the presence of a community. A form of recognition was the acknowledgment by the Argentinean government of the atrocities committed by the State; the author was called to testify in one of a series of trials, at which the perpetrators finally faced accountability for their crimes. As part of her mourning, the author created a ceremony in Buenos Aires, by installing a plaque, a Baldosa, to memorialize her mother, in the presence of family, friends, and neighbors. These acts of remembrance and memorialization contributed to the author’s lifelong process of mourning.
