A Heart Of Her Own

My mother died eighteen days ago and she took a part of my heart. With her she took the memory of my birth, my first words, steps and secrets only she knew.


As I got ready for her funeral and looked through pictures, I couldn't help thinking that the girl in her youth was so different from the woman I loved.

I was right.

At the funeral reception, I learned through my nina, of the latent adventures of the woman that lived deep inside my mother.




My mother, Virginia





I learned how the embodiment of the virgin, even in name, ran off with my father.


I knew that my parents' wedding day had been ruined by a phone call. Someone had phoned the priest and said my father couldn't get married in the church because he already was. Over the years I pieced together by eavesdropping, my mother's mythology. My Grandmother appalled and ashamed that my father was divorced took off with my mother and headed to the U.S. to safe-guard her against the ridicule. My father followed them and stopped the train in Sonora, begging my grandma to please let them get married as that was a vile lie. He brought a priest to the train and they got married and my mother and father came to live in the U.S.

I could never have imagined that my mother ran-off and that she actually didn't get married in the church until much later, until after all her children were born. I found this out only last week, sorting through papers, one of them a misal with the date July 13, 1973 written down and in her writing, the day we married. Had my mother told me the truth I would have gotten married in the Catholic church because I would haveunderstood this was something that she always wanted for herself. Instead, I saw her pleading as antiquated and old-fashioned. "Who cares? "I shouted when I was planning my wedding. "I just one a one-stop thing, on the beach, I want to get married and have the reception at the same place."


On this day, her funeral, I finally felt like my mother had lived her life, the life she chose for herself and not the life that was handed to her by her mother, and left-over from her children.



I knew that this woman full of grace, had passion, and now I also knew that her heart held secrets I could never have imagined. "So you know more stories?" I asked my nina. Can you tell me? When I was putting together the picture collage, I found old photo albums with poems written for her, verses that spelled out the letters in her name with each beginning word. My nina replied, "Your mom was obedient and listened to your grandma, and yes she had many suitors but she was so in love with a man named Maclovio, but that could never be because he was Virginia's grandmother's god-son and her third cousin. " But, according to my nina, my mom was strong-willed and kept on dating him for years, until finally she realized it could never be and they finally broke up. When she met my father, she was already considered an old maid. as she was already 34, so she started using one of her dead sister's birth certificates, officially changed her middle name to match that certificate and suddenly instead of having been born in 1931, she could say she was born in 1936.

This explained the discrepancy of her birthdates, why my grandma and a lot of her family always celebrated August 10th but her birth certificate and all documents as well as the birthday she acknowledged was May 06. Wow! Now Maclovio, that was a story I had heard about, through one of my aunts, when I asked my mom she told me that he was so short, she despised him. She could not stand him, but he kept on following her around and she found him so annoying. I suppose this was my mother's way of dealing with the loss of love. I wish she sould have shared with me. Then perhaps I would not have judge her as harsh as I did. "Children should never judge their parents," she often said, but that never stopped me from letting her know that I thought she should have pursued all her dreams, all her passions. " You only get one shot at life, and you need to do everything possible to get things right, to be happy." I used to tell her this was my philosophy, why couldn't she stop living her life for us, for my dad?. Why didn't she marry for love, why didn't she travel more, why didn't she, WHY DIDN'T SHE?




Through a curtain of tears, I thanked my nina for having shared those secrets with me. I used to feel sorry for mymother because I thought she didn't have stories, because it seemed like she never had a will of her own.

"Oh, but she did. " Interjected my nina. "She knew that her window for having children was getting smaller and smaller and she decided she wanted children more than anything in the world."

I finally understand that we, my brothers and I, were her love, and the reason she didn't have stories, she didn't have adventures to share and stayed quiet was so that I could have my own.