“Me despierte y me fui a la finca a recoger agua”

In English finca means estate, to her the finca wasn’t an estate it’s what she called the waterfall or as they say in spanish “cascada”. Every morning she would wake up and walk for around half an hour to get to the bottom of the mountain and into the “finca”. She would place her old tin basket into water and watch as it filled up. She set the bucket on the grass and jump into the lake. Her home didn’t have a shower or plumbing or anything we take for granted today. All her family had was “property”. A blue house with a bright red roof made of metal. They used a curtain as a door. In one room her parents would sleep on a mattress with her younger brother, and all the girls would sleep on the floor on top of thick wool blankets. In the other room there was a stove and table. In the back they had an outhouse.

“Mi casa estaba llena de gente, tuvimos mi hermano Mario, quien fue el más pequeño y mis hermanas Blanca, Olga, Elvira, y Eva. Sin contar a ellos tambien tuve a mi mama y mi papa.”

Poverty wasn’t something she knew existed. It was simply her life and she didn’t question it. Jobs were scarce in Panajachel and her parents didn’t have that many job options to choose from. So, her mother stayed at home to watch the children, and her father worked the whole day. He was hardly ever around. She remembers being a child and being told that her parents didn’t have enough money to put “all” their children through school. The next day she woke up seeing her brother and sisters getting ready, putting on their backpacks, and walking out the door.
“Que pasa?” she asked her mother “Por qué no me despertastes” Her mother sat her down on a chair and began to play with her curly Shirley Temple like hair.

“Te vas a quedar en la casa para que me ayudes” her mother responded. “Este trabajo es bien especial Lidia, Si no lo quieres hacer pues que te vayas a la escuela con los otros ninos, si eso es lo que quieres” She then begged her mother to let her stay home. Without any hesitation her mother said yes, knowing in the back of her head that if her daughter said  no she would have to explain that they couldn’t afford for all the kids to go to school, some had to stay and that's the way it was. Luckily she didn’t have to have this conversation. Till this day she never quite knew why she was the one who had to stay home.

  Days turned to years. Every morning her brother and sisters would wake up, eat breakfast, then go to school and returned before sunset. She stayed home with her mother. Her siblings always bragged about things they've accomplished like reading their first book or making new friends. For the first eight years of her life she knew nothing but her house and the finca.

She was fascinated by candles. Every morning she would turn on the a candle her grandma gave her monthly when she came to visit from the city. What she liked about them was that they would always have drawings of angels and beautiful people in the front side of them. Home alone that day, she rummaged the house to find snacks her brother and sisters would bring from school. She found a banana, plastic bag filled with grapes, and a roll of stale crackers. After she finished her snack she went to the finca to get some water.

“En la parte de atrás de mi cabeza, me sentí como si me olvidé de algo”  She was at the finca for about an hour. When she returned home her eyes widened and her mouth dropped. The blue house with a red metal roof she grew up in was up in flames. She cried and screamed for help. By the time everyone returned home from their day the fire was put out. But until anyone came home, she stood outside in the cold waiting for someone, her siblings, her parents. Time was going too slow.

“Lidia….?” asked her mother with an expression of shock on her face. She entered the home the walls were black and everything turned into ash. The house smelled of smoke. Her siblings returned. They laughed at her while she cried sitting on the grass. They slept outside that night and every night for the next couple of months until her siblings finished their year of school. They then moved to the city with their grandma.

“Extrane a mi finca” She had no friends that she would leave behind. So the move wasn’t as hard on her as it was on her siblings.  They didn’t speak to her for days.

Years past and she’d become a young woman. She remembers having a long curly hair, full lips, and a curvy figure. She met a man. Who at the time she loved. He was smart and ex military.

“Siempre ame un hombre en uniforme.” she told me giggling. Her face then turned serious. She went on about how polite he was to her parents and how he made her feel special. That’s a feeling she lacked of. They soon moved into a property in Jalapa. This was miles away from her family. “Pero es parte de la vida.” They soon got married conceived three children, Erica, Jaclyn ( who died at 3 ), and Franklin ( my dad ). Who was named after Benjamin Franklin by their father, they didn’t know exactly who Benjamin Franklin was but he heard he did great things.
For months my grandmother's life had been a fantasy, but her fantasy would die a little every day like a ticking bomb. The family was growing old, my grandmother was in her mid thirties when the love began dying. The two got annoyed with each other and would fight. The man she met wasn’t the man she married. He was never home. Always off somewhere after work.

“Fui muy insegura” . She always had thoughts of him with another woman. She would always ask him where he was and why he came home so late and he dodged the question or told her to leave him alone. One day her and her husband drove the kids to the beach about an hour away from their home in their bright blue pick up truck. They were mad at eachother from a fight that happened the night before.

“Yo sé lo que haces” she whispered. The car stopped. She woke up on the floor hours later in the middle of an abandoned road with her two children. Their eyes were puffy. She felt a throbbing pain on her forehead, then she touched it. She began to weep as she saw blood rushing down her fingers and dripping on the ground. The way she described it reminded me of a facet that was in between the point of being on and off, dripping.

“Y todos estos años yo sabía lo que estaba hablando.” she told. It turns out he had another wife…. and about four other kids. But the sad part of it all was that…. she completely saw it coming. She reached an inner stage of depression and felt victimized. How could he do this to her? How could a man who woke you up with kisses, and  “te amo”, be the one to hurt you the most. This was a sign that she soon had to become independent. Her two children needed a mom. They went back to Jalapa where she would soon apply as a receptionist at a doctor's office. She told me how lucky she was to get this job due to the fact she was illiterate. She slowly became less and less present in her children's lives. She sent her daughter off to work as an apprentice, this meant that Erica would have to move miles away from her family. Her son practically lived alone at the age of 7. He loved soccer and would ask his mom to come watch him play but.. she simply had no time. She even failed to show up at his elementary school graduation.

“Me enamore de nuevo.” This time it was a man about 10 years younger than her. He was dashing and had kind blue eyes, which was strange in Guatemala. All eyes came in different shades of brown and on rare occasion hazel. But, this didn’t last. The man had died suddenly of some sort of disease. He was her rock, he kept her grounded. When he disappeared, she lost every bit of stability she had left. She hadn't realized how long time has passed. Her children were in America. She’d reached the point in her life where she was becoming old, and alone.  “Como mi infancia” she looked blankly into space.

One day, she woke up and got a call from Chicago. She was now in her late forties transitioning from old woman to even older woman. The call was from her daughter. She asked what was going on? Is anyone hurt? Hows your brother? She soon received news that would change her state of mind completely.

“Erica iba a tener un bebé, Mi primera nieta”

This required a long trip, she lost count of how many days exactly. But it felt like forever in her  mind. She was slower than the people traveling with her they’d threaten to leave her behind, she’d respond with a “bueno pues si te acachen la policía ya saben quien les dijo eh.” Then she would wink. The people would roll their eyes and mutter insults under their breath.

She arrived to Texas and took a coach to Chicago.

“Mirando por la ventana era como mirar el arte, todo lo nuevo y extravagante”

She remembers stepping out the coach hand having the driver say “welcome home” Not knowing exactly what that meant, she just smiled and nodded. None of her family has arrived to pick her up yet. She walked into a dunkin donuts. That’s the first thing she remembers coming here.

“Pedí un donut rosa rematado con asperja” Pink was her favorite color. She recalls that the donut tasted like America. Then she smiled. She made it. Years later she would have about seven more grandchildren, and one great grandchild.

My grandma is a flower, not just any flower, an Iris, she grew with the rain. Her experiences made her stronger. Every moment of loneliness and word yelled at her made her stronger. She taught me that where you come from doesn’t determine where you're going. She is the definition of resilient. Having to go through a lonely childhood, death, domestic abuse, and poverty; she still maintains to be the cheerful but sensitive woman I know today.

“Cada ano regreso a Guatemala porque me gusta recordar de dónde vengo. Eso es bien importante Jeovani. Yo siempre quiero que recuerdes dónde vienes.” she told me.

When arriving to Guatemala the first place she stops is Panajachel. Where she spent her childhood. Everything looked much more modernized but she still seem to notice the beauty underneath the town. Every morning she would go back and time and would walk the same path she did as a child.

“Me despierte y me fui a la finca a recoger agua.”