Broken

The Three

 



My grandparents (Mom's side) had three children, one boy, Felix, and two girls, Flora (my Tia Nena) and Eduviges.  That is them in the photograph, my Mom is in the middle.  Eduviges, nicknamed Billin.  She was the youngest of the three and, from what my grandmother once told me, not really supposed to have been born.  My grandparents were married in September 1920.  Their firstborn, my uncle (and godfather) was born a year and a month later, in October 1921.  My aunt followed two years later in November 1923.  My mother was born in December 1924.  She used to love telling people her birthdate, 12/12/24.  Oddly enough, in his obituary my godfather's birth year is given as 1924, he always had this thing about aging.  Maybe tweaking his birth year made him feel younger, I don't know.  Anyway, when my grandmother realized she was pregnant again, so soon after having my aunt, she took the trolleys with the bumpiest routes, drank all sorts of vile concoctions, walked to the point of exertion, trying her best to cause a miscarriage.  But my Mom stubbornly held on, she had taken root inside my grandmother's womb and was determined to stay there and make her entrance in due time.  Lucky for my grandmother.  My Mom was the only one of her three children who would welcome her and my grandfather into her home with open arms at all times, even when they were old.  My Mom truly took joy in my grandparents' presence.  Then again, my Mom took joy in the simplest of circumstances, she was truly one of the most joyful people I have ever known.  She woke up happy, whistling a happy tune.  I did not inherit that gene.  I wake up in the same type of mood I imagine bears wake from hibernation.  Grouchy and hungry.  It is only after I have my morning shower and café con leche (sometimes at the same time), I start resembling a human being.  Before that, look out.  Anyway, to me having my grandparents in my day-to-day life was as natural and normal as breathing.  They were part of our fabric.  They were home.

Mom's Graduation Portrait

My mom and her siblings had a rocky relationship once they all became adults.  Oh, she got along with both of them.  But my aunt and uncle were forever at odds.  One of my earliest memories is of a morning my godfather called saying he was in town and would be dropping by for lunch and then my aunt called saying the same thing.  My grandmother promptly developed a severe headache, saying over and over again "They are going to be here at the same time."  After instructing our cook about lunch, she retired to her bedroom, a cool cloth over her eyes, still repeating that sentence over and over and over.  I could not figure out why she was upset, being over the moon about getting to see both my godfather and my aunt on the same day.  Visits from my godfather were rare treats, he lived in another province with his wife and daughter and we rarely saw him or them.

Tia Nena

The rift between my godfather and aunt was deep and wide.  It had something to do with his marriage.  From the bits and pieces I overheard, my grandparents had not gone to his wedding, it had something to do with her not being Catholic, or at least that was my impression.  Being really little when I overheard that bit, I really did not understand.  I still don't, then again, I never got the whole story from anybody.  Secrets were big in my family.  Always.  But the tension between my aunt and my godfather was palpable.  Always.  The trite phrase "tension so thick you could cut it with a knife" applied perfectly to them.

The three grew up, married, had children.  They each had one daughter.  My Mom was the last to marry.  I have written about my two cousins before, I always thought of us three as the Beauty, the Brain and the Toad.  As I grew up, I always wanted to mend the rift between my aunt and my uncle.  It seemed so stupid, really, I mean, there they were siblings, family, not talking to each other because one of them had married outside their faith?  So?  Apparently the marriage worked, they were together years and years, they had a child, they were happy together.  Why not celebrate, accept, take joy in that?  But, nope.  Years passed.  We emigrated to the United States.  Settled into new lives.  Scattered all over the country.  My aunt and her family in New York.  My godfather and his in New Mexico.  My parents and me in California.  My grandparents joined us there, about a year after we arrived.

Our very first Christmas in the U.S., there was a knock at the door one afternoon and when I opened it, there was my godfather with this huge smile on his face.  Behind him were his wife and daughter.  They whisked us off to Disneyland for the day.  Can you imagine a seven-year old seeing Disneyland for her very first time and at Christmas?  My first memory of Disneyland is seeing this huge Christmas tree with presents underneath.  I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.  When we all returned to our apartment, out came the presents and I got my very first Barbie.  I remember she came with a set of wigs, three wigs, one red, one brunette and one blond.  The adults sat around talking, my cousin showed me how to put the wigs on and take them off.  I was fascinated by my cousin, Elisa.  I thought she was so beautiful, with straight black long hair she wore in a braid.  She had a dimple when she smiled.  So did my godmother.  Both my cousins had a dimple.  I didn't.  Many years later watching Carol Burnett being interviewed, she talked about how she would spend hours with a finger poking her cheek trying to make herself a dimple and I thought "Hey!  I used to do that too!"

Great-Uncle Dr. Felix Hurtado

The rift between my aunt and uncle continued and grew.  My aunt was highly insulted when my godfather chose to use grandmother's last name (Hurtado) instead of grandfather's last name (Perez), because Hurtado was more well-known in the medical field.  My great-uncle, Felix, who he had been named after, was a rather well-known doctor.  I know it had hurt my grandfather, but he never mentioned it and he was always so happy to see his son and proud of him.  My godfather never mentioned or asked about my aunt.  She, however, would always ask about him whenever we spoke on the phone or in her letters.  The rift seemed to meld into some type of competition (on her side) about who made the most money and had the most rarefied social standing.  In that respect, my uncle won.  He traveled all over the world for the U.S. government, gained national renown in his field, was awarded all sorts of awards, medals and recognition.  His wife often sent us newspaper clips mentioning him.  Instead of taking joy in her brother's success, my aunt seethed instead.

My Grandfather Holding Me and
My Cousin Yvonne, Santa Fe, Cuba

My nuclear family, my parents, my grandparents and me, we were happy.  We lived a simple life. 
Both my parents worked, my grandparents took care of me while my parents were at work.  My grandfather walked me to school and walked me home every day, rain or shine.  Something my classmates found odd, but I loved it.  He was a constant in my life, making sure I got to school safe.  We had the most wonderful talks on our walks to school and back home in the afternoon.  When it rained, he'd show up at school with this big umbrella and my red rain boots.  He'd tuck me in under his arm, beneath his raincoat and off we'd go, with him telling me "Don't splash!" when we'd tromp through a puddle.  He always made me feel safe.  Loved.

Godmother and Mom, Cuba

Here in the States, we got the whole family together just once.  One summer my aunt visited with her grandchildren.  We were still living in the little house in Hollywood, with that wonderful deep porch and its rocking chairs.  Where you could see the Hollywood sign.  The front garden had two orange trees and two lemon trees and when they were blooming their perfume was intoxicating.  My godmother had died by then.  Her children were 1 and 2 when that happened.  And they were still very young that summer.  We'd rock them to sleep on the porch for their afternoon nap.  My godfather and his family drove in one weekend.  And there we were almost all of us, together.  My grandfather was fairly beaming, seeing all three of his children, two of his granddaughters and his great-grandchildren all gathered under one roof.  My godmother was very much missed, but we had her children with us, those precious reminders that she was once here.  Her death marked my family in such a way, it was like losing a limb.  You learn to live without it and you go on, but  you always remember it and somehow, you always miss its being there.  Like a missing piece of a puzzle.  That was the last time I remember us being together.  And, for once, it seemed like my aunt and uncle put their differences aside and just ... were.  We took joy in our being together, under the same roof, after being scattered all over the country for so many years.

The next time that happened was at my grandfather's funeral.  My grandfather died in September 1971.  After being ill for a few months.  While still conscious he repeatedly asked for his son.  We were blessed by the presence of a medical schoolmate of my uncle's being on staff at the hospital.  He was so kind.  He checked in on my grandfather all the time, sometimes going in pretending to be my uncle.  But my grandfather saw through him every time saying "You're not my son, you're his friend, Gabanzon."  He even called my uncle asking him to come, see his father before he passed away.  But my uncle chose to stay home.  He did not want to see his father dying.  Which I can understand, just can't understand why he still didn't come.  I mean, nobody wants to see their parents dying, slowly fading away.  But what we want doesn't really matter, what is really important is how they feel.  How could you deny your parent at that moment.  I don't know.  But that was his decision.  My aunt did the same thing.  She had visited us that summer, as had my godfather.  Thankfully at different times.

At my grandfather's funeral, my aunt and uncle got into a screaming match about who should pay a larger share of the funeral costs.  Why?  Their father was dead, couldn't they just be there for each other, for the rest of us, their family, for once?  My father, trying to protect my Mom from her siblings' pettiness and ever the peacemaker (and also being the one with the least money) stepped in and said not to worry, he would take care of it.  And he did.  I never knew whether or not my aunt and uncle chipped in (that seems like so trite a phrase, doesn't it?), I'm guessing they did. Hoping.  But the matter was never brought up or mentioned.  At the funeral, my grandmother was thankfully sedated, thus not witnessing her two eldest bickering over money, at their father's funeral.  I was pissed off, but good, at them both.  Thought their behavior was shameful.  And it was.  Each one trying to out-grief the other, but still quarreling over money.  Nice.  I think it was at that moment I realized, and finally accepted, my family was truly and irretrievably broken.  And now my grandfather was gone and nothing would ever be the same again.

Years passed.  I grew up.  My grandmother died.  My Mom.  My Dad.  My aunt and I always had a difficult relationship, yet she was there for me and for my Dad when my Mom became ill.  She was there again when my Dad became ill.  She was, in a word, family.  The night my Dad transitioned, she was there five minutes after I called her.  She was by his side holding his hand, when he left us.  A year later she opened her house to me and I moved in.  She was not living there then, but she came home on Sundays.  I felt safe in that house.  My parents' and my grandmother's voices had once sounded there.  I felt their presence there.  We had our ups and downs, but bottom line, she was there for me.  A year after that, she moved back to her house and we became roommates.  Which, oddly enough, worked quite well for a time.  Then she got it into her head to remodel the house, we went 50/50 and redid the floors, putting down tile which we picked out together and redoing the kitchen and the bathroom, had the house painted inside and out.  I had kept in touch with my godfather all this time.  We'd talk on the phone and exchange short letters.  I tried, I really, really tried to mend the rift between them.  But neither budged.

My Cousin Beba and Me, Cuba

Both her grandchildren, my godmother's children, were grown, married and with homes of their own by then.  They both married good, solid people.  The boy had three beautiful children.  A boy and two girls.  The girl lived out of state and visited once in a while, at least once a year.  She visited the year we remodeled the house.  Came down for the baptism of her brother's baby girl.  That was when everything changed.  My aunt, always a bit caustic with me, became even more so.  Slowly she turned on me.  My cousins and I had been getting closer, that changed.  Somehow a wedge came between us.  My aunt wore me down.  I started to lose myself.  Eventually I moved out of my aunt's house and into my cocoon.  For a while I kept in touch with my aunt, calling her.  Did the same with my godfather.  But after a while I realized that every time I spoke with either one, I was off-balance, sad, upset for days afterwards.  They were not happy phone calls.  They were disruptive to the peace I found in my nest.  And I stopped.  Neither one called.  Going through some boxes from my move one day, I found some photos I thought one of my cousins, Beba, should have, they were of her son when he was a baby.  Called my aunt to see if she had her phone number.  Someone who identified herself as my aunt's nurse told me she was taking a bath and could I call back later.  When I did, the same person said my aunt was taking a nap.  That night my aunt's granddaughter called me, asking was something wrong that I had called my aunt twice, had anyone died (I'm guessing she was thinking of  my uncle or his wife).  I told her no, no, everyone was fine, I'd just found these photographs and wanted to know if my aunt had that cousin's current phone, address, as I had been unable to locate her.  She said my aunt didn't and that was the last time we spoke.  That was in the Fall of 2005.

In late December 2005 I received a note from my godfather saying he had learned my aunt was in the hospital and did I know anything.  I called the hospital, was informed she was in stable condition.  I wrote back to him giving him the hospital's phone number and her room number, where he could call her. I was not going to be the go-between again.  Ever.  Shortly after that, he sent a brief, very curt note to me.  For some reason, it cut me to the quick.  It was like I only mattered to get information on the other, whether or not I was doing okay, was fine, happy, sad was inconsequential.  That had been the case all along, I know, but for some reason that note really brought it home.  A week later, January 6, 2006, I had my first panic attack.

Months of sheer hell followed.  Healing came, but at a slow pace and if it had not been for my friends, I really think I would not be here today.  Happy for the most part, reasonably healthy, whole.  It was hard to come face to face with the fact my family was broken.  Gone.  Irretrievably and irreparably broken.  No matter how much I had tried, I could not fix them.  I could not fix that relationship.  It was not my job.  Or, I finally accepted, my place.  I was allowing people that had no interest in my well-being control it.  Time to stop.  But, oh, how I missed that connection.  That, even though a fractured one, was still a link to my past.  To my parents, my grandparents, my true home.

This past week I learned my aunt and uncle passed away last year.  Within months of each other.  It's not like I miss them, they were no longer part of my life, but still it has weighed upon my soul.  I could not help but think, maybe if I had tried a little harder.  If I had stayed in my aunt's house.  If I had refused to leave her side.  If I had tried a little longer.  Maybe.  Re-reading their obituaries (on the internet, of all places) yet again this past Friday, while waiting for some attorneys to come to terms and sign off on a document so I could file the darn thing, I thought "Okay, Father, they are in YOUR territory now, their rift is now Yours to fix."  And, oddly enough, the thought came to me, it always was.  They were, they are, first and foremost His children.



Coqueta and Me, Cuba

Now, finally, after many tears, a lot of memories, some laughter, I just remember happy times with them.  No, there are no memories of them, of all of us, together at one time, happy, laughing, just being a family.  Except for that golden afternoon when we all came together in California.  But I do remember my godfather showing up at our house in Cuba, big smile on his face.  Him and his family knocking on our door that first Christmas in the United States.  Surprise visits when my Dad would show up at school to pick me up and my godfather would be in the car with him.  I loved those.  The many times we visited each others' homes.  Nights around my godfather's pool, bottle of wine breathing and him saying "Botamos el corcho!" (We're throwing the cork away) and him, my Dad and me talking into the wee hours, with me just listening to them talk about politics, world history, any and every subject under the moon.  I remember playing with my aunt's dog, Coqueta, and taking naps in my aunt's house, with her singing me to sleep and tickling my tummy.  Rainy afternoons in her house when we washed our hair in the rain, thunder rumbling overhead.  My aunt sitting at my bedside when I broke my arm and had surgery on it, while living at her house.  I will remember her standing vigil with me as my Dad transitioned.  I hope and pray they had peaceful transitions.  I hope their last years were full of joy and peace.  They were not bad people.  Both of them had very big hearts, generous, kind.  Joyful.  They were just stubborn, certainly a trait I inherited.  I will remember that, yeah, our family was broken, but there were times when we were, for a time, whole.  I have always thought of my family as a snowglobe.  One of those beautiful spheres holding within a joyful, beautiful world.  Then someone came along, threw it against a wall and shattered it beyond repair.  But there were and are bits and pieces of joy remaining.  My cousin's children are some of those pieces.  When living with my aunt, I babysat them a few times.  I called them my little slices of pure joy.  My family, maybe someday, who knows, someday, somewhere, somehow.  Even though we are no longer in each others' lives, I carry them in my heart.  They are a part of me, a link to a world they will never know.  In the meantime, I live my life, I continue creating my world.  I have my memories, my roots, they allow me to continue becoming, to keep moving forward.  And I remember good times, happy times.  I remember what it was like to be a family, a group, a tribe.  I know that we were not always, we will not always be, broken.