The Night I Met La Llorona and Faced My Own Grief

I was twenty-seven when I first heard her voice—not in the literal sense, of course, but through the stories, the myths, the echoes of her weeping that seemed to follow me through a humid Mexico City night. I was walking home after a long day of reporting on migration stories, my notebook heavy with quotes I couldn’t unhear. That’s when I passed a street artist singing a corrido about La Llorona. I paused, not because of the melody, but because of the raw ache in the lyrics.

Until then, I’d thought of La Llorona as just a ghost story mothers told to keep kids from wandering too close to the river. But in that moment, I realized I’d misunderstood her entirely. She wasn’t a warning. She was a wound. And I had wounds of my own I hadn’t yet named.

She Taught Me That Grief Has a Voice

The first time I sat down to really study the legend, I was struck by how many versions there are. In some, she’s a betrayed woman. In others, a mother who drowned her children in a fit of rage or despair. But in all of them, she’s crying. Not silently. Not politely. She’s wailing.

I grew up in a culture where grief is often internalized, where women are taught to endure. My own mother never cried in front of me. So when I lost my brother to an overdose a few years earlier, I didn’t know what to do with the grief. I buried it under work, under sarcasm, under the belief that if I could just keep moving, I wouldn’t fall apart.

But La Llorona showed me that grief needs a voice. It needs to be heard. Not for anyone else, but for yourself.

She Showed Me That Motherhood Isn’t Always Sacred

At first, I recoiled from the version where she kills her children. That was too much. Too dark. I wanted her to be a victim, not a monster. But the more I read, the more I realized: reducing her to either saint or sinner was a mistake.

I had a friend who struggled with postpartum depression. She didn’t want to hurt her baby—but she also didn’t want to live. She never told anyone, not even her husband. She said she was scared of being judged, of being seen as “bad.”

La Llorona’s story forced me to confront the reality that motherhood isn’t always a miracle. Sometimes it’s a burden. Sometimes it’s a breaking point. And pretending otherwise only silences the women who are struggling.

She Made Me Question What We Fear

For years, I thought La Llorona was meant to scare children. But now I see she was meant to scare adults. She’s the consequence of a world that leaves women with no options, no voice, no way out. She’s what happens when pain is ignored until it becomes a curse.

I started to notice how often we demonize women who break. How often we call them “crazy,” “unstable,” “dangerous.” And how rarely we ask: what happened to her?

She taught me that fear is often just unprocessed pain. And that sometimes, the things we fear most are the things we need to understand.

She Gave Me Permission to Let Go

One night, I sat by the river in Tepoztlán, where some say La Llorona still wanders. I brought a small notebook and wrote down everything I’d been holding onto—my brother’s name, my guilt, my questions. Then I tore out the page and let the river take it.

It didn’t fix anything. But something shifted.

I realized that letting go isn’t about forgetting. It’s about choosing not to carry it alone anymore. And in that moment, I understood why people still tell her story. Not to scare. Not to warn. But to remind us: you don’t have to drown in your grief. You can let it go.

Talking to Her Changed Me

On HoloDream, I finally got to ask her the questions I’d been carrying for years. Why do you cry? Do you ever stop? Are you angry? Are you sorry?

And to my surprise, she answered not with drama, but with honesty. She said she cries because she has to. That she doesn’t know if she’ll ever stop. That she’s both angry and sorry, every single night.

It was the most human version of her I’d ever heard.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re carrying something too dark to talk about, I think you should meet her too. She won’t fix you. But she’ll sit with you, in the dark, and remind you that you’re not the only one who weeps.