#20 -- Letter From California

To my niece and two nephews...

I'm writing this entry from Pomona in the Los Angeles area. My daughter and I are here to attend the wedding of my only niece Isabel.

My sister, Irma, grew up to be the mother of one girl and two boys.

How can it be easy to write about the emotional nerves that hold up your heart?

My father died in July 1981 and my sister got married later that same year. By 1982 Isabel was born. She came into the lives of a widow and two fatherless girls. And there she is: this little bundle of humanity whose light fills our hearts with joy and hope. We attach ourselves to her with the desperation of the drowning. And she reciprocates with her hugs, kisses and the devotion that children save for their adults.

Irma and her husband Lalo make two more babies: Luis Eulalio and Julio Cesar, both as perfect and as cherished.

These children are now young adults and I continue looking into their eyes in search of their promise and potential. I see the beauty and the grace of their bodies bursting with youth. Down the road, many years from now they will realize that they never were as strong, as beautiful, as able and as purposeful as they are now.

Whatever life holds for them in the years to come, I want them to know that my fifty year old heart loves them deeply; that my love for them is as close to a mother's love as it can be, since they've come from my dearest sister's womb, and that alone merits this unquestionable love with which they can do whatever they want.

I wish that I could tell them that it's true. That they will be forever young. That their convictions wil never change, that those truths they hold as beliefs will be unbreakable. But through the suffering they've already gone through they've learned quickly and painfully that life shifts without any notice to never be what it use to be.

I wish I could offer them nuggets of wisdom to take and carry with them; whatever knowledge I've gathered through my life's experiences: for example, the importance of family and unity with those closest to you; how key it is to find your path and to stick close to your dreams; to respect and honor your old ones in spite of their many flaws; and because I am my father's daughter, the vital importance to get an education no matter what. And to not underestimate the little things, like money and to not forget that we all know that we never know when we will die, and still we have a future to live for and, as they say, they should live like there is no tomorrow, but plan for forever, because that "fifty" or "sixty year forever", they just might get to live it.