Column: 2023 was the year we said goodbye to too many matriarchs

María Fernández Miranda is the epitome of a matriarch. Seven of her 11 surviving children live on the same street as she does in Anaheim. Nearly all of her dozens of grandchildren are college-educated, and many are now beginning to buy their own homes. Her house is an eternal fiesta, with enough giant fruit trees and random visitors to populate a Gabriel García Márquez novel.

This extraordinary 87-year-old woman is my Tía María, the oldest sister of my late mother, . Tough but tender, with a wry sense of humor and some of the best cooking I've ever tasted, my aunt was a second mother to my When my grandparents had to travel to Mexico City from their mountain hamlet in Zacatecas, she took care of her younger sister; when Mami