Numerous streets and avenues in hundreds of Argentine cities, including some towns in the interior of our country, are named after a woman who lived only 25 years.
On the other hand, she was not an eminent painter, nor a renowned singer. Nor a high-level scientist, nor a prominent writer.
So, you will ask yourself: What is the reason for his name to be so widespread?
I think there are two reasons why this young woman – who was Argentine – appears with her own reliefs and not only in the names of streets or towns.
The first reason was, we would say, circumstantial. She married the greatest hero of Argentina: General José de San Martín.
But this fact alone would not have been enough for his name to transcend so much.
Let’s say first that Remedios de Escalada married San Martín, a week before her 15th birthday.
San Martín was 34 years old at the time. But it was a lightning love. Just like in the movies, they met, loved, and after only three months of dating, they got married.
Remedios was a very fragile girl.
Three years later, a daughter completed the joy of marriage. They call her Mercedes.
But San Martín was preparing to cross the Cordillera, to liberate Chile and Peru.
He was the future Liberator appointed by the Supreme Director Gervasio Posadas, Governor-Intendant of Cuyo. And Remedios went there, with her little daughter to accompany him.
But not only that. And here is the second reason for the permanence of his name in our history.
He participated there in Mendoza in multiple tasks. He donated his jewelry – he was from a wealthy family – to buy supplies for the army. And she “almost” forced the patrician ladies of Mendoza and Buenos Aires to imitate her.
She worked 15 hours a day at the Patriotic Society, which addresses the family and human problems of the troops and gave her husband the spiritual support that the chosen men also need.
But her health was not with her.
He celebrated his daughter Merceditas’ 6th birthday with a party. During it, Remedios de Escalada responded to her friend Mariquita Sánchez de Thompson, who asked her if she felt happy that night? I’m asking you because your husband hasn’t been able to come.
“I’m not happy. Because I guess that my daughter won’t make it to her 15th birthday or even seven. And as for my husband, I would like to see him at least one more time.”
It was like a premonition. Merceditas turned 7 years old on 08-24-1823. Twenty days before, on August 2, Remedios de Escalada died.
San Martín was in Mendoza at that time, and he could not see his beloved companion die either.
Already the Liberator in Buenos Aires, his face expressing his drama – because pain is the designer of the physiognomy – decided to leave for Europe with his little daughter. But first he had a tombstone placed on his grave with these words:
“Here lies Climbing Remedies, wife and friend.”
She was, we repeat, 25 years old and San Martín was 45 at that time.
It was for him one of those pains for which tears are not enough.
He thought he would die of grief. He did not die, physically, but he felt that his life had definitively escaped him. Because in close deaths we are dying. And the death of a loved one, although it does not kill, marks. The years that remained of his life, which were 27 more years – he lived 72 in total – no one could hear a laugh coming from his throat; just some faint smile tinged with inner sadness.
And I end with an aphorism that aims to reflect the situation that the father of the country experienced since the death of his wife.
“Sorrows leave us marks that joys do not erase.”
Source: Ambito
David William is a talented author who has made a name for himself in the world of writing. He is a professional author who writes on a wide range of topics, from general interest to opinion news. David is currently working as a writer at 24 hours worlds where he brings his unique perspective and in-depth research to his articles, making them both informative and engaging.
