La Luna/The Moon

About 5 years ago I started watching one of those shows that dive head first into the pool of the genealogy of a celebrity.  They follow one of the branches of the celebrity's family tree until they hit the most amazing story of one their ancestors.  People who sacrifice, who were heroic, or sometimes who committed the most awful of sins and mistakes. 

I felt inspired to go on my own quest for find out more.  I searched online and found most of the information that I had already learned from mom.  Mostly just names and dates.  I wanted more stories.  I wanted to know who these people were.  I started to hit a few walls and I ended up digging up stuff on my husband's side of the family instead. I uncovered pieces to an amazing family story, much like in those shows.  I was a bit jealous by that point.

A about a year and a half later, my oldest brother started to join in on the research.  My brother's involvement added fuel to a fire that had started to dwindle for me.  We really started to make better connections and piecing together the story of our great-grandmother.  Her last name was Luna, which is the Spanish word for "moon".   Using our living aunt and uncles stories we realized that our great-grandmother had sacrificed a lot to survive.  She hid her own Native American roots and more than likely gave up a lot of her own culture and personal identity in the process to protect herself and her family.

Only now, nearly a century later, because of technology we can finally acknowledge her and her sacrifices.  In honor of her, I named this blog "Rayo de Luna" which is Spanish for "moonbeam". 

viaje/journey

I remember the moment I took this picture.  We were at my brother's house just this last summer.  This was my mom's bed that had been ordered for her to sleep on.  It was supposed to be more comfortable and also had these massaging air sacks that were filling and deflating while she slept.  It think they were supposed to help prevent blood clots.  She hated that bed.  It was uncomfortable and bumpy she said.

This was a visit down to South Texas that was just to see my mom.  She had lived near me and my other brothers for over nine years, but now it had become time to "go home" in more ways than one.

While I remember when I took the picture, I am not sure why I did.  I was in her room getting something and when I came out of the bathroom this is what I saw.  Her uncomfortable bed, the huge metaphorical reminder of what was coming.  She would eventually take her last breath in that bed. 

In the background of that photo, my kids swimming and having fun.  Maybe it was the stark contrast of the two things happening in the same frame.  Life and death.  Even now, looking at this photo my heart immediately remembers that sinking, nagging feeling, that was growing inside the pit of my stomach that day.  I knew it was coming.   This time it was real.  This was not the scares we had so many times before when her health turned.  Maybe my heart made me take this picture to never forget that feeling.

Since my mother's passing, I have been on a journey of sorts.  Little did I realize that when she was gone, I would no longer have a parent to lean on or talk to.  My dad had died 9 years earlier (two weeks after my sister-in-law).  When mom died, it was like we finally had our head above water for the first time in a long time.  But while I could take those deep cleansing breaths, a lot of those breaths were also filled with sadness that stung.  They still do. 

In the last 7 months I have had to take a deep breaths and reevaluate the non-physical inheritance my parents have left behind for me and my family.  I strain to remember stories.  I grasp to aspects of my culture.  Sometimes I sit in what I can only label as disbelief that she is really just gone and that life goes on.  It's been a journey.