My Why

Prologue:

My life has always been surrounded by the love of my family. I have depended on my family and they have depended on me as well. That being said, I’ve gone through many changes with my family. Those changes have broken me down into the little pieces that make up the woman that I see when I look in the mirror today. The moments, memories, people, and places I recount are a significant portion of my body. I could even say these stories are my heart. Like a heart, they pump my blood and help me function. They are the essence of my existence. As a little girl, I dreamed of what my mind would be like as an adult. The version of me that wonders those things wouldn’t even be able to comprehend how everything that happened to her every day is what makes up the foundation of my mind. 

 

Mimi’s Cafe with my dad:

It was about 9 am on a Saturday morning; my favorite day of the week. I had woken up at 7:30 and spent an hour watching Max & Ruby on the television waiting for my dad to wake up. Mom was at work(like every other Saturday), but I was more than okay with that because her being at work meant that I’d go to Mimi’s with my dad again. My dad’s cooking skills were limited to scrambled eggs with a tortilla, hence why I loved going out for breakfast. At 8:30 he had finally woken up and by 8:45 we were ready and driving to Mimi’s Cafe. As we entered the restaurant, the hustle and bustle of the workers were prominent in the atmosphere. The entire place was filled with the buzz of what seemed like a million different conversations about everything from small talk and name-calling every few minutes to intense business plans that I could never understand.  The waiting area took up the whole front room of the building, and it seemed like every inch of it was occupied by a person or a piece of furniture. I looked around and saw big families with tons of kids, couples both young and old, tall people, short people, loud people, and quiet people. My dad and I were always the quiet ones. We’d sit there patiently until it was our turn to be seated. Occasionally I’d ask my dad simple questions that any regular 7-year-old would ask, like if he’d take me to Chuck E. Cheese after. In the mornings, there’d always be a big container full of fruit punch with cups for the waiting customers.

 

My dad would always tell me to get some, so it became a regular thing for me to always get a cup for myself and one for my dad while we waited. When we were finally seated, we ordered our usuals and began to play the games on my kid’s menu with the crayons they gave me. I would get the same thing every single time; chicken fingers with fruits and lemonade. My dad usually got the same dish, but every once in a while he’d try to switch it up even though he’d always end up going back to his favorite. As we waited for our food, we finished the word search on my menu. I lived for those word searches because it was real bonding between my dad and me. We laughed and worked together to figure them out.

 

Spending quality time with my dad at my favorite childhood restaurant on the weekends greatly influenced my present self. Those moments may be small but they play an essential part in my life. They have made me a complete daddy’s girl. My dad is my role model and my true hero. Although I no longer go to breakfast with my dad on weekend mornings because of work I’m still close to him and I look up to him. Any time that I can spend talking and learning from my dad holds a special place in my heart. I adore my dad and the advice he gives me about simple things as well as complicated things. Any time I’m noticeably down because of a particular problem in my life my dad’s advice is always the one that helps me calm down and believe that everything will be okay. I admire his hard work, wisdom, and knowledge. I can’t help but say that my intellect roots in those moments and the time I spend with him.

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My mother’s hand surgery:

Like a small child being pushed into a pool unknowingly, without any idea of how to swim, my life has come with a challenge that has caused me to feel similarly. Gasping for air, desperately trying to get their head above water, and panicking because they don’t know what to do or who is going to help them. The hand surgery my mother underwent during my junior year in high school affected my life more than anything ever has. 

 

My mother had been suffering from the pains at work for about 2 years until she had to go on disability because she couldn’t bear the pain any longer. In November of 2016, my mother finally received surgery on her right hand in order to attempt to release her carpal tunnel. Our family was nervous about her surgery because there was a chance she could never use her hand again, or never recover. Despite the odds, we felt it was essential to take the chance. After her surgery, my whole world turned upside down, and I had no idea that my life was going to become that difficult. I realized that every morning, my mom woke my brother up at 7 o’clock, fixed his hair, made him breakfast, and drove him to school. Every morning she made the beds, swept, mopped, washed the dishes, vacuumed, and did my little sister’s hair after bathing and changing her. Every day she picked my brother up at 12:35 pm from school. Every day she would be cooking dinner as I came home. She continuously tidied up around the house throughout the day. Every night she packed lunches for both my dad and my brother. Every time we needed groceries, she would go out and get them. If anything was ever lost in the house, she knew exactly where to look in order to find it. 

I began to wake my brother up at 7 o’clock. I began to fix his hair, my sister’s hair, and mine at the same time. I began to make him breakfast for both him and my sister and watch them eat as I rushed to get myself ready for school. Every morning I made the beds and drove my brother to school, before driving to my school. Every day I had my mom call a pass for me to leave around 12:15 in order to go pick up my brother and take him home on time. Every day I came home to make dinner and clean, help my siblings with their needs, and my mom with hers. Every day I found very little time for homework and schoolwork because I was constantly worrying about my duties around the house, which had been dropped on my shoulders by my mother’s surgery. My grades quickly began to drop, my work ethic at my job and at school lacked, and I was tired every single day. I began to morph into the shape of my mom so much, that I left the shape of myself behind. I was stressed about everything I had to do all the time. 

 

Despite this, I managed to deal with it all and come out with an acceptable GPA. If I was the small child in the water, then I figured out how to get my head above water and take a breath. I consider that time in my life one of the most difficult obstacles that I’ve ever faced. I learned so much and developed mentally. I also realized that my mom does more than I ever imagined she did. 

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2020 and the loss of my grandparents:

2020 has been a crazy year, to say the least. This year felt like my family and I went through an entire lifetime. The year started out amazing as I had gone to Mexico and Tahoe within January, and started the Year Up program on the first of February. Not 2 months into the program, the world had turned upside down as we all learned that we were in the midst of a pandemic. Everything changed to remote and it was a huge transition for all of us. It was a new thing to experience "Zoom fatigue" and even worse to find out one week into it that my grandmother had passed away while going to a routine doctor's appointment. I was devastated. 

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Not long after, I was rushing to connect with my family and ball my eyes out. In the back of my mind, all I could think about was how I would continue the program with this horrible news. I just wanted the world to go back to normal and for my grandma to come back. I'll never forget holding my grandmother's belongings and finding her hand sanitizer in her bag. My grandpa had made a comment about how she always made sure they were staying safe while she took care of him. 

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My grandmother was always the woman that held the family together and gave everyone so much. Sometimes she would tell everyone what was going on in each other's lives and it created a little bit of competition between her children, but looking back now I realize that it was her way of keeping us connected and in the know of our loved ones. It was her way of motivating us to be our very best. My grandmother was the most giving person I have ever met and I would give the world to be able to witness her generosity one more time. 

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My grandfather was the ying to my grandmother's yang. He was never afraid to give anyone a piece of his mind. He was fierce and unstoppable. My grandfather's personality was perceived in many different ways by the people of our small pueblo in Mexico, but he was an alpha no doubt. He was a landowner and a policeman, a member of the district council, and a father to 9 children (6 of them boys and 3 of them girls). One of those nine children was my mother. My grandfather had to be strong. He had to be because he grew up a child who was left without a father figure. He grew up to be the father that he never had. 

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My grandpa was a funny man. I remember spending time with him as a nine-year-old girl and dying of laughter when he would jokingly take out his dentures to make his teeth disappear. He always told me his shirt pockets were the most important pockets for his "chicle" or his gum. He would always take it out and show me what kind he had. There was never a day that he did not carry a pack of gum with him. 

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After my grandmother passed away, my grandpa was the last to find out. I'll never forget him walking into the hospital meeting room full of the entire family (an extremely rare sight). Nobody knew what to say. We all stared bewildered because nobody could accept it and nobody wanted to be the one responsible for breaking this man's heart. The moment he started crying I ran to hug him. It didn't matter that we were in a pandemic, and it didn't matter that the entire family was there. What mattered was that I wanted my grandpa to be okay, but there was nothing that I or anyone else could do. 

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My grandpa became depressed. Aside from losing the love of his life, his best friend, and the mother of his children, he had lost the woman who was his caregiver. He had many health issues including diabetes and was on multiple medications after enduring eye surgery, a kidney transplant, and open-heart surgery. He was on a specific diet and schedule that my grandma took care of and things were going to have to change. My mom and aunties split the time to take care of him by days of the week, so my mom and I would visit him on Sundays. We would go and clean his house, make him lunch and dinner, and spend time with him. We would even take him to buy flowers and visit my grandma's grave. 

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In December of 2020, just 8 months after my grandmother passed away, my grandfather did too. It was an unimaginable tragedy that I can't even bring myself to go into detail about. All I know is that it hit hard. It hits twice as hard now, six months later. It's hard to try to recover from the loss of a loved one, but it's harder when you lose more than one. One minute they're there and the next you'll never see them again. I've learned to you never really recover, you just