You Are Invited To…
I got to see my Titi for a couple of days! I went home over the weekend and upon seeing each other we shared a big long embrace. One with no words but yet it said so much. We hadn’t seen each other since I started writing her story and something between us has changed. We have mostly communicated through messages, texts and recordings. We have shared a few phone calls but not the same space. We haven’t seen each other face to face in this new light. We now share a connection that spans language and decades. We are both very aware that we have given each other a gift that is greater than either of us. Holding her I felt all of that. I was able to spend just one night with her going to dinner, grabbing drinks and then sorting through 80 plus years of family photos.
We now have a new awareness surrounding time; specifically, the uncertainty of it.
____________________________________________________________________________
So everything was settled, we were to be married in December but his family had to come and ask for my hand in marriage the old fashion way. It must have been around October and Henry said he and his parents were coming and everything would be finalized and planned for the wedding. The day of, Henry told me his parents had arrived but he didn’t tell me times of when they would be at my house. My mom was asking if they were coming for Tea or dinner and I didn’t know what to say but I said I believed it was in the evening. The day went on and they didn’t come and they didn’t come and I was grading papers for school and crying. I kept thinking ‘maybe he doesn’t want to marry me, why isn’t he here, where are they!?’ What happened was that Abuelito Rafael, Henry’s father, had decided to go help with his old job at the railroad and it made him late but they finally showed up.
When I met Henry’s father, to me Abuelito Rafael it was an instant instant love. I really loved him like my own father. I had met Henry’s mother before but she was very formal about things and very strict. Everything had to be just so and properly done. But his father was so kind and gentle. Everyone was talking, especially our father’s who knew each other and finally we got around to talking about the wedding and everything was settled. They left and I didn’t get to see Henry until it was going to be time for the wedding but the letters kept on coming. Like he said I was promised to him; I was his novia and he was my novio. It was time to plan and get everything ready for the wedding. It was a very busy time.
My dad asked me if I really loved him and I said “of course I do”, because I did. But you know, when you think about it, real love doesn’t come until later. Of course we would look at each other and think ‘I love them, I want to be with them.’ But the real deep love comes the first time you have your first child, your second child, your third child. It comes when you have some problems and have to solve them together, it comes over many years as it keeps on growing in a very wonderful way. The longer you are together the more it grows. When you don’t need to say anything, you can be in the same room completely silent just reading and something is said and you realize you are thinking the same thing. It was just the feeling of this man, what he could do to me just by walking in the room. After all those years together over time I could still feel my knees buckle and butterflies. I wish everybody could feel this fantastic love.
