A Tapestry Woven: From the past into the future

By Peggy Morales

If you believe there are no coincidences in life and we are on a destined path, then this book will attest to that perception. The story of Luz is where this journey begins. It is a powerful example of strength, of will to push through one’s fears, and of raw determination to survive. The lessons and examples of having the courage not only to survive but to ultimately thrive through some of life’s hardships eventually became the threads of knowledge that were passed on to Marianna.

Marianna enters her life’s story only to be abandoned by her mother at the age of three months, her mother who was too young and unwilling to do “what it takes” to care for the children she brought into the world. Whether by “destiny” or by “coincidence,” this child is left with Luz, who had also survived her own tragedy of being left and abandoned after her parents had been killed. Luz would become a grounding force and guiding light in Marianna’s life.

Marianna spends a lifetime behind the facade of pretending, showing people she was happy and willing to do most anything to show the world how well-adjusted she was. Marianna’s journey to discover she was accepted and good enough unfolds in a way that she is able to gain insight into life—her life—thus passing along her own threads of knowledge to her children and generations to come for more of the tapestry to be woven.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781646289547

Book preview

Chapter 1

In the kitchen Mama Luz was preparing the morning meal and packing lunch for her husband, Selso, as he readied himself for his ten-hour shift at the railroad roundhouse.

A tall, quiet man, he was, came into the kitchen, sat down to his coffee and burritos, and said, Ve, mira que tiene la niña, está llorando mucho, ¿qué tendrá? Y Lydia que no la oye. Go check on the baby to see what is wrong, she is crying a lot.

Why doesn’t Lydia hear her? ¿Por qué no la atiende? Why doesn’t she tend to her?

Mama Luz, a small woman, walked to the back of the house and slowly opened the bedroom door and found the crying baby in a small cradle and a sleeping little boy on the bed where Lydia would be sleeping, but there was no Lydia. Almost in desperation she opened the door that led to the outside patio and called out her name.

Lydia, Lydia, ¿dónde estás?. Where are you?

Luz walked around to the front of the house, thinking that maybe she was sitting outside in the cool early-morning breeze. But in truth, in the pit of her stomach she feared something was wrong; Mama Luz might even suspect the worst. Nowhere to be found, she came back into the house where her husband waited for her. And now the child cried harder and louder and inconsolable. The child felt what Mama Luz already knew. Mama Luz frantically checked the closet, and what she feared was true—Lydia’s clothes were gone, the little suitcase was gone. She felt as if someone had just kicked her in the stomach.

Mama Luz picked up the crying child and looked over to see that little Henry was still quietly sleeping.

Ya, ya, ya no llores Marianna, mi niñita aquí estoy yo. There, there don’t cry Marianna, my Little one, I’m here.

She walks to the kitchen with the crying child. Her crying was so hard she gasped and tried to catch her breath; her face was beet red from the strain of crying. As Mama Luz walked into the kitchen, Papa Selso looked at his wife as she stood there with a shocked look on her face, and with a quizzical look on his face and then at the child, he wondered what was going on.

¿Y Lydia? Where is Lydia?

Ya se fue, she answered.

¿Cómo que ya se fue? ¡Aquí está la niña! ¿Y el niño?. What do you mean she’s gone! The children are still here!

Luz answered, Henry está dormido. Henry is sleeping.

¡No puede ser!. It can’t be!

They both stood there for what appeared to be hours, looking at each other, without saying a word, and then at the crying child in Luz’s arms. In their own minds they both thought, A baby and a little boy at this time of our lives!

Chapter 2

Marianna was three months old, and little Henry was just fourteen months old when they were left. However, life was already a struggle for Marianna—from her mother’s neglect—and that was evident on her little body. Within days of her mother’s departure, Marianna was taken to the hospital with severe diaper rash, a rash that Mama Luz could not get rid of no matter what she tried. The rash had left her bottom bleeding and her skin sticking to her diapers; infection set in, a fever, and then pneumonia.

Dr. DeMoss, the family doctor and Espy Mendoza his nurse, and a close family friend, came to talk to the family to inform them, You have to be prepared she may not survive. She is a very sick baby.

While the news was serious and uncertain for Marianna, Henry, the quiet little boy, seemed to be doing well or adjusting well. He was eating everything that Mama Luz cooked: beans, rice, potatoes, tortillas, tacos, anything. At times he seemed sad, but that passed quickly as he found his new toys to play with or he could play outside; it was always safe, as there was a fence surrounding the house.

At the time Mama Luz’s daughter, Jesus Lupe, was also working at the hospital, which was a blessing since she could look in on the baby. Lupe, as she was called at work, told both her friend, Espy, and Dr. DeMoss that it was Lydia’s fault that little Marianna was so sick because she was so busy with her life she wouldn’t take care of the baby like she should! Everyone in the family knew the truth of the situation but didn’t speak the words, but Lupe was not one to be silent or bashful about the truth. She was angry. She was angry not because she disliked Lydia but was so hurt and disappointed in her niece.

The truth was that, growing up, Lydia had been Lupe’s favorite of the three children of her brother Jose’s children that had been left for Mama Luz to raise. As there was a seven-year difference between Lupe and Lydia, she had helped with Lydia and favored her into her teen years. By the time Lydia was in her teens and a beautiful young lady, Lupe was working and helping her parents and also buying Lydia little trinkets, which she loved; Lupe also enjoyed doing so for her favorite niece.

In the summer of Lydia’s sixteenth birthday, she wanted to go see her father in California. Mama Luz was not totally opposed to it but also was not going to let her go unaccompanied. The plan was made that she and Lupe would also go to visit Jose and the family; by this time Jose had five additional daughters.

Lydia loved San Bernardino, the beautiful city—so different from the town she just came from—and all the stores, movie theatres, and all the excitement! When it came time to leave, she pleaded with Mama Luz to please let her stay for a little longer and possibly go to school there, so she stayed. I’m sure, in both Mama Luz’s and Lupe’s hearts, they left her there with a heavy heart, but also wanting to do the right thing for her too in giving her more opportunities.

The only opportunities that came Lydia’s way were fun and boys and a pregnancy the following year. Lupe came to help out with little Henry for a month or so as Lydia tried to be a young wife and mother. However, fourteen months later Lupe came back to California again as Lydia had given birth to a beautiful little girl. The in-laws and her father’s family were all enamored with the little girl. But now Lydia had two babies to care for at the young age of nineteen. Lupe stayed a little longer this time, but it still seemed that Lydia was overwhelmed with the two, and it seemed that the couple was still struggling financially. But Lupe had to come back home, as her work and family were also waiting for her. She came back home and prayed for the best.

At the hospital, Dr. DeMoss told the family that the baby was not able to hold any milk in her stomach—the milk was making her sick. She was not able to digest milk or other various types of baby formula; mixtures of rice water, diluted carnation milk with or without corn syrup were not working. Dr. DeMoss tried a variety of milk mixtures, and nothing was working for the child. Dr. DeMoss was running out of options.

After leaving little Henry with one of her comadres, Mama Luz would go to the hospital to hold Marianna in her arms, the fear of uncertainty of life or of death always hanging in the balance. The signs she was all too familiar with, with those children of her own that she had lost years before. As she sat there rocking the child, she would pray and then sing little lullabies to sooth her pain away. After Dr. DeMoss and Espy’s discussion with the family of Marianna’s grave condition, they knew they had to contact Lydia to let her know the serious condition of the baby. She had to come to be with her child. Her child could die and needed her mother. None of the family were successful in talking directly to Lydia, but they were able to get word to her. Lydia never called and never came.

Mama Luz knew that the child had not been baptized, and heaven forbid if she died without baptism. As a strong Catholic, Mama Luz believed that Marianna would never see the gates of heaven or the face of God and be doomed to roam around purgatory for eternity if she were not baptized, so this must be done. She sent Maria Juanita, her eldest daughter, to her old friends, Norberto Hernandez, and his youngest daughter, Eulalia (Lala), who was on leave from the Navy—perfect timing to talk and make arrangement to have Marianna baptized.

Mama Luz thought this was a good choice—the head of the Hernandez family and one of Selso and Luz’s oldest friends from the old country and the youngest woman from that family to be godparents to Marianna. Being godparents to a child was a very important role to assume and to assign. Mr. Hernandez, the head of the family, would offer respect, as a father would, and provide proper religious guidance and obedience; and the younger woman, Nina (title assumed when the baptism was done) Lala, would be around for continued religious guidance and overall guidance should she survive.

Marianna was in the hospital for a few months, fighting to heal from all her ailments and working hard to survive. During this time Dr. DeMoss kept trying a multitude of formulas and different concoctions, not giving up either, until he finally found the miracle formula—buttermilk. Buttermilk seemed to be the perfect formula, the perfect nourishment, the perfect balance for this child. With the new nourishment and the continued penicillin as the magic antibiotic for Marianna, Dr. DeMoss could see progress in healing. By all accounts this was a child that he had not counted on living more than a few months more, but somehow her sheer will to survive was just as powerful as his will to find a solution to her survival.

They both won, and soon Marianna was well on her way to a full recovery and on her way home to her family.

Chapter 3

Mama Luz and Papa Selso—by the mid-1940s standards—were already in the autumn of their lives. They had had sixteen children in all, with only three that were still alive; they were the strong ones, the ones that survived the treacherous times of the early 1900. Their two daughters were still living at home. Maria Juanita and Lupe were already working, helping their mother with chores and buying their own clothes and were pretty much self-sustaining women, but were ruled with an iron fist of control from their parents.

Maria Juanita worked for Mr. and Mrs. Heather, the funeral director’s family, and Jesus Lupe worked at the hospital. At one point in Maria Juanita’s young life she had been engaged with plans to marry, but that was not to be when a sudden tragedy occurred at one of the local mines in town. The young man lost his life in the accident, and Maria Juanita lost the love of her live. The accident left Maria Juanita with an empty heart, and she felt that she had nothing more to live for; her heart was crushed. She was never the same again. As a dutiful daughter, she continued with her work and of helping her mother and father—as duty commanded. Jesus Lupe, the younger one, was still having fun with her girlfriends, working and in hopes of finding that handsome young man that would sweep her off her feet. And then there was their eldest son, Jose, their firstborn, the one that was the reason why Mama Luz and Papa Selso escaped Mexico many, many years ago. Jose, now a grandfather himself, was living in California with his new family.

Jesus Lupe was working at the hospital at the time when Marianna was taken to the hospital. She had special care there since Lupe and her friend, Espy Mendoza, Dr. DeMoss’s nurse, were both working there; they both made sure that they each looked in on the baby and made sure that someone was there to hold her, feed her, and change her ever so often. Mama Luz and Maria Juanita would take turns coming in at the end of the day, so not to leave Henry alone, to look in on the child. It was a long time, but finally Marianna was well enough to go home, thriving on that magic drink. Marianna went home to Papa Selso, Mama Luz, Maria Juanita (Jennie), and Jesus Lupe (Jessie).

After living in the community, by now close to thirty years, Mama Luz had become well known to many as a respectful woman, a gracious woman, an intelligent woman of great knowledge and experience. As age comes to some people, so does great respect and the title of Dona. Mama Luz had earned the title of Dona—she was Dona Luz. This title was a title given only to those women that had earned great respect in the community.

Dona Luz was the kind of person that people seemed to gravitate to for various reasons: her love of family, faith, wisdom, and for some of her midwifery skills. She was also one of those persons that had God-given knowledge of home remedies and use of yerbas (herbs) to heal a variety of ailments. However, nothing that she could do helped Marianna. She tried various oils, potions, and herbs on her little bottom, to no avail. Mama Luz’s talents included remedies for Mal ojo, Empacho, and a variety of other alignments. She was the woman that was called upon to assist with deliveries, childhood illnesses, and called upon when death was near to pray the prayers to ask the Lord for una buena muerte, a good death. Mama Luz knew the face of death, for it had come more times than she cared to remember. In a strange way it was almost a normal occurrence for her; it was like an open wound that never really closed or never healed.

Marianna and little Henry were Mama Luz’s great-grandchildren, the grandchildren of her beloved son, Jose. Mama couldn’t understand how life was repeating itself; here were these children that were abandoned by their mother, and before that their mother was also abandoned by her mother. This was an incomprehensible thing for Mama Luz, for a woman that loved and revered life, for life itself was a gift from God. How does one reject the purest of gifts from God? Mama Luz accepted yet another gift not as a replacement for any of her losses but a little joy of two to soothe her heart in the autumn of her years.

Marianna thrived and flourished with the magic drink of buttermilk. Once home, she started eating smashed beans and potatoes and sucking on tortillas dipped in bean juice, a staple in Mama Luz’s household. Before long her little body filled out and finally looked like a normal, healthy roly-poly baby.

Chapter 4

Very rarely, if ever, was the name of Lydia spoken—Marianna and Henry’s mother—as it was almost painful to say or hear her name. The pain was invisible in Mama Luz’s eyes but burned in her heart. The pain was also left there by the other children she, too, had raised as her own—Lydia’s brothers. Even though these children had left her and had left a sad and burning feeling in her heart, she would not or could not have done anything different.

Luz’s path had been set many years ago with a strong sense of family, and now nothing could change who she was, and also nothing could change the pain she silently carried in her heart. At times she wondered what had happened, where had she failed; she gave them what she could; she didn’t understand the need to leave and not return. How could it be that they couldn’t feel the ache and emptiness in their hearts that she felt? All she knew was that she could not nor would she ever leave or abandon any of them.

Marianna was loved and protected by the elder couple and pampered by her aunts, Juanita and Lupe. By the time Marianna was two and Henry three, Papa Selso retired from the Southern Pacific Railroad, La Compania. However, his health was failing and didn’t have much energy for the small children other than for him to sit and let them run around him as they laughed and played. As he watched them, he wondered what would become of them. Retirement was short-lived, for very soon after, he was dead from the common railroaders’ disease—black lung disease. With his death in 1946 he left his faithful wife, Luz, his two daughters, Lupe and Juanita, the last three women in his family alone with two small children, his great-grandchildren, to care for. Papa Selso left them alone; however, he left them with a modest but comfortable home on a large lot with two small rentals and a railroad pension to sustain their income. Of course, his daughters were grown and also employed to help the household.

Prior to Papa Selso’s death, Lupe was being courted by a handsome young soldier who was a survivor from the