A while after eating dinner tonight my mom called me. This call surprises me because she is out of town visiting with friends and she usually doesn't call me when she is out unless there is some piece of gossip she just can't wait to share. She already did this two days ago so I am a bit confused. I picked up the phone and answered and she goes through her list of typical questions: how are you? How is the boy? etc.
She then asks me if I know when and where her father was born. I raise my eyebrows in surprise as I reach for her file folder.
A while ago, probably well over a year ago, I started looking into my family's past. It started by me wanting to make an accurate family tree for our son. He has several heritages so I had a lot of digging to do. But while doing so I found a long and rich history with my mother's paternal family. I was able to trace them all the way back to the 1600s. In land that would become part of the USA.
As it turns out, once upon a time there was a little town called San Marcial in Socorro County, New Mexico. It was a little town that got wiped out by the Rio Grande twice! My family comes from there and was able to trace them way back in New Mexico. I found a newspaper announcement of my great grandparents' marriage. I found a copy of their marriage certificate. Census records show many children that did not quite make it to adulthood and I often wonder about their deaths. What I has puzzled me the most is why did my great grandparents leave New Mexico? They had lived there for well over a century when they packed up their kids and headed to the west coast. Unfortunately, I have no one to ask. A mystery I will likely never solve.
My mother will be taking a road trip to New Mexico next month with a friend and she hopes to dig up some more information on her family. Hopefully she will share it with me and I can add it to her file folder. I do enjoy the genealogy searching but I get frustrated with dead ends and give up for months at a time. It's one of my flaws: I give up quickly.
Monday, July 27, 2015
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Oregano
My wife is attempting for the first time my mother's chicken salad. It is not your typical chicken and mayo and whatnot salad. It actually has no mayo type substance added. It is chicken and lettuce and tomato and onion and oregano and some seasoning liquid from the motherland. I trust my wife's ability to cook so I'm not worried about the recipe being ruined.
I sit here, working on this blog's layout and whatnot, as my son pesters me. He is distraught, he noticed a lego person was missing when he spotted him in my lego house. Yes, I have my own legos because he has an inability to share (we're working on that) and it relaxes me to build. He has been trying to gain him back all day without listening to what we keep telling him: the more he bugs about it the longer he will be without it. It sounds like we're being unreasonable but it's for his own good. He obsesses over things and we're suppose to teach him to let go when they really don't matter. It's one of many things we have to teach him because he won't learn it on his own. He just isn't quite right.
As I sit here, listening to Frankie Valle while attempting to make this look right as I "ignore" my son (I don't really ignore, I see all his attempts) I can spot out of the corner of my eye my wife working in the kitchen. I'm not focused on her or anything else going on. Then it hits me.
Oregano.
She is dicing up the oregano for the chicken salad. And suddenly I want to cry. My mother is the only one who has ever made it the way I like. The way my grandmother liked it. And I miss my grandma. She's been gone as long as I've had my son but the wound still hurts as if she died yesterday.
She grew oregano in her yard. She didn't like the price at the store for fresh oregano and said food just didn't taste the same without fresh oregano. It is still planted next to the stairs to go inside (my mother lives there now) and I remember how the smell hit me every time I bumped it as I went up those stairs to visit her.
"Oh What A Night" just started playing and so many emotions go through me. Sadness: A story inspired by this song has been sitting in my WIP folder for years. The story is clear in my head but never transfers well when I try to write it. Joy: I've sang this to my wife often. It's a very fun song. Bitterness: I saw the musical Jersey Boys about 8 years ago on a date. My date ended up breaking my heart severely and though had we not broken up I wouldn't have been with my wife, it still hurts. Sometimes these things take more time than we'd like, I guess.
My senses are still overwhelmed with oregano. My son has given up on the lego minifig for the moment. He is dancing and I smile. He loves music, just like me.
Everything will be ok.
I sit here, working on this blog's layout and whatnot, as my son pesters me. He is distraught, he noticed a lego person was missing when he spotted him in my lego house. Yes, I have my own legos because he has an inability to share (we're working on that) and it relaxes me to build. He has been trying to gain him back all day without listening to what we keep telling him: the more he bugs about it the longer he will be without it. It sounds like we're being unreasonable but it's for his own good. He obsesses over things and we're suppose to teach him to let go when they really don't matter. It's one of many things we have to teach him because he won't learn it on his own. He just isn't quite right.
As I sit here, listening to Frankie Valle while attempting to make this look right as I "ignore" my son (I don't really ignore, I see all his attempts) I can spot out of the corner of my eye my wife working in the kitchen. I'm not focused on her or anything else going on. Then it hits me.
Oregano.
She is dicing up the oregano for the chicken salad. And suddenly I want to cry. My mother is the only one who has ever made it the way I like. The way my grandmother liked it. And I miss my grandma. She's been gone as long as I've had my son but the wound still hurts as if she died yesterday.
She grew oregano in her yard. She didn't like the price at the store for fresh oregano and said food just didn't taste the same without fresh oregano. It is still planted next to the stairs to go inside (my mother lives there now) and I remember how the smell hit me every time I bumped it as I went up those stairs to visit her.
"Oh What A Night" just started playing and so many emotions go through me. Sadness: A story inspired by this song has been sitting in my WIP folder for years. The story is clear in my head but never transfers well when I try to write it. Joy: I've sang this to my wife often. It's a very fun song. Bitterness: I saw the musical Jersey Boys about 8 years ago on a date. My date ended up breaking my heart severely and though had we not broken up I wouldn't have been with my wife, it still hurts. Sometimes these things take more time than we'd like, I guess.
My senses are still overwhelmed with oregano. My son has given up on the lego minifig for the moment. He is dancing and I smile. He loves music, just like me.
Everything will be ok.
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