And death circles closer still...
Apparently, my biological grandfather is dying of prostate cancer. My mother wants to go to Guatemala to pay her respects and say final words to him so in post-pater-death she won't suffocate with guilt. My mother and her father are not close by any means. He is a lecherous womanizer with many children from many women who did little to support my mother when she was a child. He has a bona-fide bachelor pad, complete with awards on the walls, pictures of famous people and large-breasted women, and a large mirror above the bed which I found wildly amusing the one time I visited him. He took great pride in my height, beauty, and apparent intelligence (read--height and beauty) when I met him. To this day, my mother is quietly ashamed of him, but acknowledges that she cannot ignore her own blood. Thus, a trip to the mother country is at hand.
I am paying for her plane ticket to go see him. She was going to take a bus the whole way through Mexico; a 4-5 day, 200 something dollar ride, and I couldn't allow her to do it in good conscience when I know I possess the funds to buy her a round-trip ticket. I just can't. I feel like my great-grandmother's constant reminder that "El hijo que honra padre y madre tendra bendiciones y larga vida" has completely ingrained itself into my sub-conscious and there is nothing I can do to change it. I must pay for that ticket, else I lose my honor, my blessings, and my long life.
On the other hand, my great-grandmother is dispassionate about the whole scenario. After all, why should my mother take precious days away from the household to visit that good-for-nothing fornicator? Amidst her palpable insanity, my mother is the cornerstone of the Nedwick/Verdugo/Ramirez household. Without her, the seams burst with incompetency. My father is the proverbial bumbling old man, my great-grandmother has shriveled in body, mind, and spirit, my sisters are too young to take on the adult responsibilities of a home, my uncle is a simpleton, his wife is mentally damaged (and shall I mention pregnant?!), and their children are 14, 6, and 4. Sometimes my family is so Latino it baffles me, even with the presence of my Jew-ish old man.
All this I type as I lounge in the comfort of my middle-class apartment complex in beautiful Mid-Wilshire, surrounded by friends and relative success, married to my golden husband who is off working right now and will come home to a clean, bright and beautiful wife and home. This comfortable reality always makes me feel strangely removed from my parental legacy. Does moving up in the world mean I'll lose what is Latina about me? Does moving up in the world mean I'll lose what is Nedwick about me? I shudder to think I might raise my children in a cultural vacuum, leaving them to fumble in their adult lives for the sense of community that I was raised with and am so-not-ever going to take for granted.
Here's to the ties that bind.
I am paying for her plane ticket to go see him. She was going to take a bus the whole way through Mexico; a 4-5 day, 200 something dollar ride, and I couldn't allow her to do it in good conscience when I know I possess the funds to buy her a round-trip ticket. I just can't. I feel like my great-grandmother's constant reminder that "El hijo que honra padre y madre tendra bendiciones y larga vida" has completely ingrained itself into my sub-conscious and there is nothing I can do to change it. I must pay for that ticket, else I lose my honor, my blessings, and my long life.
On the other hand, my great-grandmother is dispassionate about the whole scenario. After all, why should my mother take precious days away from the household to visit that good-for-nothing fornicator? Amidst her palpable insanity, my mother is the cornerstone of the Nedwick/Verdugo/Ramirez household. Without her, the seams burst with incompetency. My father is the proverbial bumbling old man, my great-grandmother has shriveled in body, mind, and spirit, my sisters are too young to take on the adult responsibilities of a home, my uncle is a simpleton, his wife is mentally damaged (and shall I mention pregnant?!), and their children are 14, 6, and 4. Sometimes my family is so Latino it baffles me, even with the presence of my Jew-ish old man.
All this I type as I lounge in the comfort of my middle-class apartment complex in beautiful Mid-Wilshire, surrounded by friends and relative success, married to my golden husband who is off working right now and will come home to a clean, bright and beautiful wife and home. This comfortable reality always makes me feel strangely removed from my parental legacy. Does moving up in the world mean I'll lose what is Latina about me? Does moving up in the world mean I'll lose what is Nedwick about me? I shudder to think I might raise my children in a cultural vacuum, leaving them to fumble in their adult lives for the sense of community that I was raised with and am so-not-ever going to take for granted.
Here's to the ties that bind.