It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster weekend. It all began with the emotional highs of celebrating my nephew’s 15th birthday! We celebrated him along with ten of his friends at Fountain Valley Bowl. The years have gone too quickly, just yesterday I was afraid to hold him in my arms because he was a tiny babe! Now, one of the tallest in his group, I still find myself as in awe of him as that first day I met him outside the womb. He’s just beginning his passage towards adulthood and I can still see glimpses of a child, when he’s not putting up the teenage bravado. On this day, he was all smiles surrounded by his teen posey and from the margins I got to share in his celebration as we gave him the space to claim his independence. Though, when it was time for the cake, I did embarrass him by corralling all the kids to sing him a very high-pitched birthday tune.
Following the mini quinceañera, I headed to my friend’s house for my annual
Christmas dinner gathering. After a year hiatus we were able to come together
and celebrate the birth of Jesus together as friends and sisters in Christ. It was great to see each other because even
now the gatherings are quite scattered and rare. The children as always show us that even
though we all come from humble, turbulent beginnings we are choosing to give
our future generation a better life, not just materially, but also by being
more loving and trying to correct the wrongs we experienced.
On Sunday, I woke up to the news that the one celebrity that has become an integral part of my family’s history had passed. Vicente Fernandez or “Chente” as many of us affectionally called him had gone on to serande Our Lady of Gudalupe on her day. That night we gathered as a family to watch Chente’s wake and were surprised by a concert given by the Mariachi Azteca who accompanied him for over forty years at El Rancho Los Tres Potrillos. The family opened their doors to the ranch’s arena for the pueblo to come and say good bye to their beloved star and from the screen of our home my family gathered to pay our respects. We cried like we have never mourned a celebrity while we saw his family and loved ones stand guard at his coffin. We recalled all those wonderful memories he gave us and the many songs that have nurtured us throughout our years. At first he was boracho music (Sigo Siendo El Rey), or songs that we played when our hearts were broken (La Diferencia), or when we lost a loved one (Mi Querido Viejo), or when we found out my sister was pregnant (Hermoso Cariño), or when my nephew crawled dance to “Estos Celos” and we used the “Para Siempre” soundtrack as his lullabies… Eventually his music interwined with our memories. It felt like the closing of the Ranchera golden era, a death of a tradition, a loss of the good ol’ days. It was also quite fitting that as a family we gathered to watch “El Ultimo Adios” like we used to gather so many times around the TV screen to see his movies in the eighties and nineties.
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