La Llorona, which means crying lady, is a story the adults would tell the children to scare them. The parents would tell the children the story of the crying woman so they would behave and quiet down. The myth is: there was a lady named Maria, she fell in love with a man from her village in New Mexico. She and the man fell deeply in love and they had several children. They didn’t have much, but they were happy. Then the lady found out her husband fell in love with another woman, so since she was not married to Maria, he left her. So the woman and her children didn’t have any money, so she drowned her children in a near by river so they wouldn’t have to live a harsh life. Then, after a while, she began to regret it. She started roaming around everywhere crying over her lost children. She is always roaming around bodies of water, especially rivers and canals, creeks, anywhere there is water. Some say you can still here her at night yelling for her children.

One dark night, at a party, the parents began to tell stories. The story they told that frightened all the children was the story of La Llorona. Of course, I knew it was not a real story, so my cousin, Sandra, and I left somewhere else. We had heard the story plenty of times before. As we were walking, she asked, “Do you believe in la Llorona?” I said, “Of course not, it’s just a story the big people tell us so that we would be quiet. Do you?” Then she replied, “No way.” Then I asked her, “How about we go to the river right now, unless you’re a chicken.” Then she said, “I’m no chicken, lets go.” So as we walked, the night grew darker and darker. We could hear the rapid waters of the river. Then Sandra said, “See, I’m no chicken.” Then we heard a loud cry. Sandra looked at me; she had so much fear in her eyes. Then I said, “Oh that’s probably an animal,” I assured hear; but I wasn’t even sure myself. I was scared. Then after a while, we heard another couple of cries, they sounded like a woman’s voice. Then we looked at each other, and then we looked back. In the distance we saw a figure of a woman in a long white dress. We hid behind a big bush. Then I peeked out and the lady was just walking around, then she looked at me. She had the biggest red eyes, bright red. A shiver ran all through my body. My blood turned ice cold. Then my cousin began to run. She didn’t see the lady so she ran right into her. I yelled for her to run a different direction but it was too late. So with out thinking, I ran to help out my cousin. I charged as fast as I could toward the woman. Then she snatched me up as well. She looked at us as if she was wondering if we were her children. Then she began to walk slowly to the river. I regretted coming over to the river at night. Then, I felt a cold feeling shoot all over my body. She was drowning us. I couldn’t breathe. I regret getting my cousin and me into this sort of trouble. Now we are paying for not believing.