I Remember

By Nelly Castañeda

Everyone struggles during different times in their lives, some more than others. This is the story of an extraordinary woman whose struggles at times became unbearable...to the point of desiring death. Through this book, I will take you on an incredible journey-a hard journey. It tells the journey of a woman who refused to give up and a powerful, faithful God who never stopped fighting for her. This woman was my mother.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098044640

Book preview

1

Life Would Never Be the Same Again

It was New Year’s Eve in 1960. My mother had just turned eight years old two months before. Her mother (Domitila), my grandmother, had been in labor for a few hours. Everyone at home was waiting anxiously for the arrival of the new baby. This would be the seventh child born to the Banderas family. One child, a girl named after her mother, died at a very young age. They believed she had died of cancer. My mother, her eleven-year-old brother Tony, her two-year-old baby sister Tocha, and her two older teenage sisters waited in anticipation for the new arrival. Everyone in the small, tidy, and noisy house was in joyful spirits. Her father patiently paced back and forth through the house, nervously waiting for his wife to give birth. Then early morning came. They had been in vigil throughout the night. They were weary and tired but in cheerful spirits.

Suddenly, everything seemed to stop, including time. This joyous, happy feeling instantly left the room. It had been replaced by pain, sorrow, and a suffocating sense of loss. Their joyful anticipation become a nightmare, a bad dream.

Her mother and baby sister died. The baby was breech. In the attempt to turn her, my grandmother bleed to death, and the baby suffocated inside of her. My mother always talked about this time in her life with great pain and sorrow. My mother never got over the death of my grandmother. She was never able to find closure, maybe because she was a child when it happened. As children, we tend to see things from a different perspective. To her, this was the greatest tragedy in her life. The loss of her mother at the young age (eight years old) was always present. Mother said, I was not sure what was going on or what was going to happen now. The only thing I knew and was completely sure of, even at my young age, was that my life was never going to be the same again. In the years to come, my mother would find out how true her words would be.

My grandfather was broken, lost, and I think even terrified. His world had crumbled in front of him. The life he knew was gone, never to be the same again. He had lost his wife and child in an instant. He was left widowed to raise five children on his own, the youngest being two years old. In Mexico, there is no such things as insurance policies or planning for the unexpected, especially if you are from humble beginnings. In those days, and in that part of Mexico where they lived, people are very poor. They can barely make it day by day, living off their land and livestock, if they happened to have any.

My mother described the pain she felt when her mother died, Like a knife going through your heart and ripping it out. She told me how her older brother Tony woke her up in the middle of the night on one occasion and whispered, Do you want to go and see Mama? Yes, she softly replied. They walked to the town’s cemetery in the middle of the night, with nothing but the moonlight and a pair of kitchen spoons in their hands. The spoons would be used to dig out their mother, so they thought. In their innocent, deep desire to see their mother, they thought they could dig her out with a pair of spoons. The need for the woman who had given them life, love, and care was overwhelming. It took over everything they knew or could know at their young age. They dug and dug with those spoons as fast as their little hands could go, eagerly digging and digging, in the hope that they would soon see Mama. In the end, their strength and eagerness to see Mama again would fall short. They eventually got tired and fell asleep on top of the grave, that same grave that brought them so much pain and sorrow but somehow they could not stay away from.

They would awaken by the light of the day and the sound of their father’s voice yelling out for them as he lifted them up from their mother’s grave, How dare you do this again! How many times have I told you not to come out here in the middle of the night!

They slowly walked back home as their father hit them with his belt.

I asked her, You had done this before?

Yes, she replied.

It was not the first time they had snuck out to go to where their mother was laid to rest. My mother recalled going to the grave many times in the middle of the night, too many to keep count, ever since that awful day of January 1, 1960.

As the days and months went by, things changed so drastically. Life without their mom was very different. How could it not be? About six months after her mother died, her two older sisters took off with their boyfriends, leaving my mother, her brother Tony, and her baby sister behind. As the oldest girl left at home, my mother was now responsible for the house. She had to learn to cook, clean, do laundry by hand, and take care of her baby sister. Before her mother died, all she needed to do was to be a child with a normal childhood. Now their life was different, very different. She had to grow up quickly.

She recalled when she had to learn how to cook fresh tortillas on a firewood stove (comal). With a smile and tears in her eyes, she said, I don’t know how my dad ate the food I made for him. Most of the time, it was burned or undercooked, especially the tortillas. She eventually learned how to cook and keep the house. She saw her father struggled with the loss of her mother. At times, he seemed lost and distant, sometimes becoming angry. She loved her father deeply—always had, always would. She never blamed him for anything or had resentment toward him. My father did what he could with the cards he was dealt. That was all he could do.

2

Cruel Intentions

My mother would often mention her maternal grandmother, Grandma Nieves. Mother had fond memories of Grandma and the stories she would tell her and her little sister when they would visit her. Grandma lived in a house in the middle of town. I remember seeing that house when I was little, at least what was left of it. It had crumbled through the years as the townspeople dug for gold coins. Supposedly, the coins were left by my great-grandmother from the time of the Mexican Revolutionary War of 1910. My mother admired her deeply, saying, She was the bravest woman I had ever known.

Grandma Nieves had worked and fought alongside Pancho Villa during the Revolutionary War. She had been his head nurse. She took care of all the wounded. From stabbings to gunshots, she took care of it all. Through the war, Grandma Nieves became very good friends with Pancho Villa. They were so close, they became compadres when he became the godfather to my great-uncle Genaro. Unfortunately, my great-uncle Genaro was killed while he swam in the river. Some men came into town, looking for the golden saddle Pancho Villa gifted to my uncle. They found him in the river and shot him. They continued to my great-grandmother’s house, beat her, and stole the saddle. Later, Pancho Villa received word of what had happened. He went in search of the men who had killed my uncle. After a few months, he killed them but never found the saddle. After this happened, he often would visit Casas Blancas to check on my great-grandmother Nieves. Therefore, people believed there were gold coins buried at Grandma Nieves’ house. I think they did find a couple of jars of clay full of gold coins once, but that was the only time my mother knew of. When I was there in 2004, the townspeople told me that my great-grandmother is in the history books taught to the schoolchildren there.

As time went by, life would not get any easier. My mother often wondered if she would survive in a place that was so isolated, deep in a valley, surrounded by endless mountains, and so far removed from everything and everyone. It was a place where everyone knew everyone, but no one knew them. She would often talk about those times when people had been very kind but also so cruel at the same time.

My mother loved to visit her grandmother so she often went to her house. There was one particular day she could not forget. She remembered like it was yesterday. She was walking back home from visiting Grandma Nieves with her little sister. As they walked in front of a house, the front door suddenly swung open. Almost instantaneously, she felt this burning, scalding, wet feeling pounding against her flesh as her little sister screamed. She was stunned to see two women by the door holding buckets in their hands. No, it couldn’t be! she thought. These grown women just threw hot, scalding water at them, most of it landing on her six-year-old sister. She was filled with rage and disgust. She felt this incredible feeling of vengeance come over her. As she took her crying sister home, she thought, Things cannot stay this way. As they made their way home, she began planning and thinking of how she was going to make things right. This needed to be remedied and fixed. A debt needed to be paid, and she was going to collect.

After she dropped her sister off at home, she went back and found those two wicked, cruel heartless women washing clothes by the river. As she gathered stones, her rage and need for vengeance overpowered her thinking. As she slowly approached them from behind, she threw the first stone. It hit the target! Again and again, she threw stones till her twelve-year-old arms got tired. Then she ran away with a sense of relief and satisfaction, but knowing this would not be the end.

The next day, the two wicked, cruel, and yes, bruised women showed up at her grandmother’s house. She stood there as they pleaded their case and modeled all their scrapes and bruises to her grandmother. I will