The mother entered her son’s eight-story mansion for the first time, but a single sentence from her daughter-in-law made her cry and return to the village in the middle of the night. “Son, I love you, but I don’t belong here.”

Doña Elena lived in a humble thatched hut on the banks of the Papaloapan River in Veracruz, where the nights were filled with crickets and the murmur of the water.

At 73, she still rose before dawn to water her small garden of chilies and tomatoes and feed the few chickens she had left. Her life was simple, solitary, but steeped in memories that kept her alive.