Women in general, seem to have the same ability to survive as men or any other living creature, they can be just as vicious and dangerous under certain circumstances. After years of carful observations, all the genetic legacy of past generations may remain dormant until something like a sound, shape or a smell triggers it. That’s when a floodgate of untapped knowledge runs to our rescue, it can appear out of nowhere and in a second all things fall into alignment, for those who care there is always hope and faith.
And this is exactly what happened; in my late twenties my mother’s cousin invited the whole family to his daughter’s “Quincianera” party. It is interesting to me the many members of this side huge family lived in the United States, Texas, California and Chicago. This was an excellent opportunity to find out more about my grandfather Jesus Gaona Guzman. Igniting the quest to unravel the past and understand the scars that marked my family’s tree, he was an interesting and intelligent man, he died young in 1951, of a massive heart attack, at the age of 45. I went to the ranch where he was born, met a few of the family still living on the ranch, most of them had moved to Saltillo. My cousins living at the ranch were like most descendants of Mennonites, they were freckled face, red heads, but instead of blue or green eyes, theirs were a strange yellow hue, that reminded me of goats or snake eyes, enchanted by their presence, has left a deep impression. All seven siblings had yellow iris with dark green circle. From that day on, I was convinced that to meet our extended family, was vital. They didn’t speak a word, nor did they move much, they stared back at me, amused as well by my unannounced presence, I was not there by myself; my mother’s cousin and daughter took us with aunt Jesucita, they all used to play together remembering their former childhood fondly; my one-year-old son was a bit groggy after the long car ride to the ranch. While I was very curious and asked about our grandmother’s life at the ranch, she had a vague memory of her uncle Jesus (my mom’s dad).
In the northern state of Coahuila, the land scape seemed familiar, pine trees grew from one hill top to the other, according to our great grandfather Clemente ten thousand acers belonged to him. The ranch is currently an apple orchard; back in the early 1890’s the main crop was walnuts. They had to travel four days on a mule to get to the local market in Saltillo. Nobody knew when he started working in construction or if someone else taught him engineering. High in a dense forest terrain living isolated in this remote mountain ranch, “el Tunal”. What was a fact, that Jesus was one of twenty-four siblings. How many miracles could Guadalupe Guzman, his mother, preform or even survive? She had a total of eighteen kids, of which six were twins, there were no public schools until 1935, so most of them could not read or write; back then, most people spoke their native language. I am sure they didn’t have much to say with all the choirs needed to keep everyone fed. There was nothing wrong with being illiterate, there was a natural wisdom about Clemente Gaona, my great grandfather who lived to be one hundred and fifteen years old; besides being handsome, hardworking and smart, he had a personal philosophy: why worry if a problem has a solution, if a problem doesn’t have a solution why worry? On that trip in the summer of 1985, I got to meet Clement’s second wife Apolonia, who he married after becoming a widow at the age of sixty. He had six more kids with her, adding a total of twenty-four descendants.
Not everyone gets to tell their story, but I believe that is why I am here, to gather as much facts from the people who grew up in these rural areas, to peak into their past. Our collective heritage is immensely rich; I could never understand why my father (Arturo mentioned in the first story) was an intellectual (member of Mensa International) and often a sensitive person, who insisted on ignoring our past, any question I raised about it was met with a violent response: “That is none of your business”. There seemed to be fear of nostalgia, mistakenly avoiding any form of acknowledgment of his not so tragic past, as if looking back into the past was a sign of weakness. He avoided his elders, throughout his life he had only two friends: Alicio and Luis, who neither called or visited them. Both of them met my father in college, all three were from different countries, Luis was from Argentina, and Alicio from Chile, they became good friends and tried to maintain the friendship over fifty years, despite his grumpy demeanor.
Why omit past? The implicit responsibility of our inheritance is woven into our future, it naturally straightens our only existence; by forging a higher purpose. I started pondering. Why should anyone spend all their life working for money? It’s not that to conform with an average lifestyle is bad, but why do they become motivated into the current fashion trend? Why to be labeled “Dated” is an insult? How much attention is craved and goes unsatisfied?
Consciously living is not acquired by practicing any ritual or religion, in fact I get the feeling that religious leaders covertly stole our natural awareness by crafting meticulously the story of sacrifice to voluntarily omit our needs, doubt our senses and give up all our will, while being threatened with eternal damnation, and actively punished anyone who even dared to pondered about this fabulous relationship with our cosmos. Not a day goes by, where my relatives dead or alive are present in one way or another, it’s a matter of fact this sense of certainty, appreciation and binding, seems to upset the despots, they seek to weaken and destroy the basic source of our power, they truly despise our legacy.
Over and over I discover how relentless this can be, whether it’s an incoming official or a new bride, anyone that is insecure tends to erase the other’s past and becomes obsessed with jealousy. The amount of people suffering under the cruelty and repression has been swept under the rug, most of these issues are ignored, I suspect that our body saves us from harm by deliberately removing hurtful memories; we can be insane but, still breathing. Yet memories are hiding till it is save to help us once the threat is gone. But if we become weary of endless persecution we may choose to die and free ourselves.
Why should anyone want to dismiss their own legacy and all these connections? The more I research the circumstances, the more I can verify the constant obstacles deliberately placed in our daily activities. My mother and father’s biggest mistakes was to disconnect and bet their lives on twisted ambitions. Perhaps a whole generation of wannabes has broken our ability to make sense of life, confused by the bombardment of treacherous lies and have fallen into the worst of all traps: city dwelling.
Life on a ranch was not easy, wolfs, scorpions, red ants, rattle snakes and mosquitos’ survival was a constant struggle, unless you learned to make friends, then they took care of you, that’s how it was with Clemente Gaona, he knew that most people have no friends, city folks were awful, he never liked being in the city for that reason. He deeply regretted that his children had moved to the city, only to arrive sooner to their own graves, he lamented that they all worried to death; by the time he passed away, he had already buried over half of his beloved clan, including my grandfather Jesus.
Jesus had a meteoric career, his ranch skills served him extremely well. While laboring as a construction worker, almost immediately he became a foreman interpreting blueprints and contributing to the site administration he had a sweat demeanor that set him apart from the bosses in charge; a kind of compassion and empathy hard for even the laziest or meanest worker to resist. He was twenty years old by the time he eloped with his fourteen-year-old sweetheart Emelia Martinez, who he met in Tampico. Jesus needed to work at different construction sites that kept him far away from the ranch, plus he felt that Emelia would be happier playing with his younger siblings, also she liked being the teacher, since her mother Agustina was Otomi and also a teacher and very smart. The ranch folks adored her for her patience and knowledge a natural story teller; she got him to buy books, pencils and paper so his brothers and sisters could learn to read and write. A year later Emelia gave birth to Ramon their first son, unfortunately the baby was not to live long, she was fifteen and her immense love misled her to over feed the baby with egg yoks, his sudden death due to heart failure drove her insane; dazed and confused she embraced Ramoncito tightly and could not let him go; the tragic event tainted her life and all of her descendants in an indescribable manner that to this day we all of us carry. She could not talk about what happed, this overwhelming sense of responsibility was viewed as being possessive, no one ever understood or even asked, it got lost in a haze of sadness. Two years later Jesus junior was born in 1935, followed by my mom Camen Zita the following year. When I went back to Mexico City, I got to know Emilia quite well. She trusted me. I was her second grandchild. And one day she poured out her heart, as if it had happened only a year ago, that’s how I learned in detail about the loss of her first born, that uncontrollable sense of panic that hid her otherwise undefeatable integrity.
Meanwhile Emilia’s husband, Jesus, was working up in rank, he was soon partner of a construction company with important state politicians, that promised voters better roads, bridges and public buildings. Jesus senior was a trustworthy person, smart and sensitive, he had accomplished more by sharing the joy of building projects and convincing his workers that their best effort would bring success.
By march 1938 the foreign oil companies were nationalized and the well-intended socialist movement turned to industrializing the country. The new post-revolutionary construction boom was felt not just in the capital but all over the land. My grandfather’s construction company was commissioned to build, new oil tanks as drilling proceeded in the 1940’s, because Europe was at war. During that decade, the Mexican movie industry also grew, unrivaled and with it the building of new cinema theaters. Progressive thinkers and politicians in favor of Mexican enterprise started to destroy the colonial buildings, “Steel Structures” became the element forged into an unprecedented construction explosion, there is a saying; “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. They could not find enough excuses to introduce their veiled obsolesce element into every building. Then as most commercial endeavors are not meant to help anyone but to create a problem that “they the technocrats’ lords will resolve any issue”. Down came the majestic buildings and in their place these cast steel building apartment emerged like tumors, all due to the notion of “Location, location”, no city planning, no apparent need to identify with anything but the appearance of modernity, any notion of landscape was omitted, historical landmarks were meaningless folklore, blinded by the amount of money to be made, allowed the greediest, ignoramus of the Mexican new rich to prevail. The nonstop real-estate binge, led to high-rises, a gross encroachment on what was left of the muddy murky lake, the inhabitants had no say or knew the difference, kilometers of slums smothered the towns, huge haciendas were divided and sold. Such was the beginning of the end of what was left of the majestic lake and valley of Anahuac, as roads with traffic signals, electric poles, the rush to prosperity trolley cars, buses carried the workers to the factories and back to the slums, each route displacing the fauna, forest and rivers crisscrossed scaring the land permanently.
Note: (A glimpse of this era can be viewed here).
To be continued…
