With Love…
I believe almost every generation has a moment where they look back and think “I wish I would have done/been/asked/cared… MORE”. At least in terms of the generations in their family that came before. I feel that sentiment whole heartedly, especially when it comes to my grandmother’s and grandfather’s siblings and their extended family. Ironically enough this admission SHOULD be enough for a change in action or communication but life is BUSY. When I say I see myself reaching out and changing things or making more contact in the near future… that means in a few months maybe because all of a sudden BAM a half a year has gone by. Yet, I still hold on to the delusion that there is still endless amounts of time that I will have with these amazing individuals. When you view things from a child role, it doesn’t seem to matter how old you get, there is still this sense of timeless innocence or a little blissful ignorance in that role, at least for me. An ignorance that makes me think those adults will always be there.
Hearing more about my Uncles and Aunts really does help with the push to put my thoughts and love into actions for others to witness and receive; However, even if it does still take some time, I do hope that all of my family knows that this isn’t just my love letter to Titi… but my love letter to every single one of them. This slow burn of a journey, that will no doubt take me as long as time allows, is a way for not only familial stories and history to live on forever but more importantly the love that we so deeply carry, and which grows with each generation. In all the ways that we show it.
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Not only did the first 5 years go extremely fast, they also held so much importance for me as our family was able to come and join us in the United States during that time as well. The first of course was my brother Manuel, the Sharps gave me a visa for him to come and he was probably around 18 or 19 when he arrived. He arrived when we lived in our house on Main street. I remember we knew he was getting there, he took a flight from Bolivia to Chicago and from Chicago he took a train. He arrived at my door in a taxi and he came out and I remember he gave the taxi driver $10 and said “keep the change”. I remember thinking “WHAT! keep the change!?”. I was spending $11 on groceries for the family for a whole week at the time and here he was just giving $10 away. It just made me laugh but it was so good to see him. He wanted to work immediately and wanted to study. He had about 2-3 jobs and one of them was a printing company and the owners loved him so much that they offered to sponsor our brother Fernando to come. So it was so wonderful having both of my brothers here with us. They would all go off to work and I was the mamma for everything, just cooking and cleaning for the whole house.
Soon after Manuel decided he wanted to get married and bring a girl that he left behind in Bolivia here. He was very in love and felt very ready but to be honest I wasn’t sure. I thought he was so young, he just got here and doesn’t have a consistent job or profession so I pushed back but he was sure. The sharps helped him fill out the papers and bring Blanca Maria, who I had never met before. Being young herself, her parents wouldn’t let her come until she was married. In Bolivia you can marry by proxy so she got married to my dad as a stand-in who had Manuel’s papers and she was the next one to come. When she was to arrive we took the train to meet her in Chicago. I remember asking him if he had any money and he said “yes yes I have money don’t worry about it”, so we went to the airport and waited for the plane to come and when it landed, no Blanca Maria. Oh poor Manuel, he went crazy walking all over the airport trying to find out what happened. So we went into the city and it turns out he didn’t have any money like he said. So I had to call Henry to come get us in Chicago because we were stuck here. So we said we will meet you at the Conrad Hilton hotel, we had maybe a quarter between us and hadn’t eaten anything so we just waited. When Henry got there we had dinner and then went back to Urbana with no Blanca Maria.
We found out later that Blanca Maria had stopped in Brazil to visit her brother and she was coming in 2 more days so we turned around a couple days later to get her again. I finally got to meet her though. She was a beautiful girl and very sweet and shy. She didn’t know anyone but she had to come and stay with us of course and she and I had to start planning a wedding. We then found out that Manuel couldn’t get married in the U.S because he was underage. While they got married in Bolivia by proxy that doesn’t mean anything here and it was of no value. So Mr. and Mrs. Sharp had to adopt Manuel to then give him permission to get married.
It was a very small wedding, but it was very beautiful. It was February the 10th and we went to St. John’s. Henry gave Blanca Maria away, I was the maid of honor and Fernando was the best man. Then I remember down the aisle here came little Ralph running yelling “uncle Manin uncle Manin here is a flower, you forgot your flower.” I remember just looking at Henry like “get your kid we are in the middle of a wedding”. Well anyways we went to the Sharps after for cake and Manuel played the guitar. They didn’t have a honeymoon, they just went to the apartment that Manuel had rented for them and soon after she got a job and they both went to work full time. They were all working but then they would all come to our house for dinner and I would cook. This is when I really learned to cook, I had only started to cook in Bolivia but not for the whole household. So I tried all different kinds of dishes and types of cooking, cleaned and cared for the house and took care of my two babies. Well that is all for now.
