Doña

Last night, dark storm clouds crept in from the horizon. The neighborhood was dark because there was no luz. It was a ghost town. Leaves blew about; the trees trembled. Thunder moaned in the distance. Lighting bolts dashed across the sky. A mist blew in as the rain started playing melodies on the tin roof. The smell of a summer storm wafted in the air.

Doña Esperanza, a tall hefty woman of 68 with thick eyeglasses and a toothy smile, and I sat quietly in the "galeria" (front porch) watching this drama unfold. We like to sit on the galeria a lot, to “coger fresco” (catch the breeze), compartir, and watch the neighborhood goings-on or observe flying objects or brewing storms. Usually we talk about the town, the luz, the weather, what I did that day, her brief life in Brooklyn, but I’ve never really broached the subject of family. So I asked her how many children she had. A simple and considerate question… People ask about families here rather than what you do for a living. However, her answer saddened me.

She told me that she had 3 children, but only was living (her daughter who lives with us). Her only son died while serving in the military when he was 21, but he wasn’t killed in combat. One day after doing some exercises with his group, he drank a hot soda (“refresco caliente” as she told me), and the next day, he died. The assumption was that something wrong with soda… Strange, but I didn’t want to pry any further into the circumstance.

Ten years ago, her daughter, a doctor, and her granddaughter, who was 7, were traveling to a town in the West, when their “guagua” had an accident and caught on fire. Four people were killed in the accident. As my Doña put it, two of them were hers.

I wish I could say that this was the only time this question of family elicited such a sad response, but it’s not…

When I was in training a few months ago, I was sitting down in the dining room to have lunch. My training host doña and I were chatting and I asked her about her children. She stood in the doorway of the kitchen, leaned on the door frame, and started crying. She told me that she had just lost her daughter a year ago to a disease. I was speechless, and I felt so bad.

The doñas in this country shoulder a lot of weight. The majority of the time, they are the father and the mother to their children (Where are the fathers, you ask? They are either off having second or third families, they live on their own, or they’re working in the States and sending back money. Generally, fathers don’t provide emotional support for the family, just financial support.). Doñas work tirelessly to care for their families. They wake early in the morning to buy the groceries and begin cooking the mid-day meal. They spend the day washing clothes by hand. They scrub the house up and down. They gossip with the neighbors to find out the news of the town. They are the towers of strength in any family, and their opinions carry a lot of power. Doñas will hold you by the hand to point you in the right direction. Hungry? They will insist that you sit down as they serve you something to eat.

So last night, as I was sitting on the galeria with Doña Esperanza, I gained a new respect for her. I couldn’t see her in the dark, but I could feel the pain in her voice as she talked about her deceased children. I could imagine her eyes remembering… and yet, in spite of all, she never runs out of smiles or high-pitched giggles. She continues on while she tenaciously hangs onto her faith in God.