In support of my papá…

My only living grandparent is dying.

We found out last week that my grandmother in Mexico is dying of heart and renal failure. This is a woman who’s had a rough life—partly by no fault of her own and partly because of uneducated, selfish decisions she made in her young life. She is the mother of 15 (yes, FIFTEEN!), my father being the first, which also means he was the first to be shipped off to live with family members when it started getting too crowded in the Morales household.

When my grandmother was just a baby her father walked out on her mother. Like any loving, nurturing, sane mother would do, my great grandmother blamed my grandmother… a baby. From that day forward my grandmother was no longer treated like one of the family. Instead, she was the maid, babysitter, and slave to her own family. While the other kids were off getting good educations, my grandmother was forced to stay home and do housework and such.

As you might expect, her children were treated no differently. My father has told of stories of his aunts making him clean the house just to get a scrap of food to eat, if that. Sometimes it was just the leftover juice from a soup—none of the veggies and definitely none of the meat. He’s told of stories of his cousins telling their friends that he was their maid and definitely not their cousin. So yeah, you can imagine what might have been the catalyst for my dad wanting to come to America and get the heck out of dodge. Talk about wanting a better life.

Naturally, as my dad got older, he had a lot of resentment towards his mother. Not only did she abandon him, she also abandoned many of his other brothers and sisters one-by-one as new ones were born. She just KEPT on having children (at one point, as a teenager, he literally begged her to stop having children. He got a good, swift slap in the face for that one.).

Despite all that, though, he loved his mom. Even when you beat a dog, it still comes back, right?

A few years ago, my Dad finally realized that he needed to forgive his mother. He sent her a long letter detailing what he felt she did to him and then told her that he loved her and forgave her for all of it. It took a great weight off of his shoulders. I know my dad deeply loves his mom no matter what. I understand that and I think it runs in the family because she, too, loved her mother, despite the fact that her mother flat out said that she never loved my grandmother.

On a side note, I know I shouldn’t say this—God forgive me--but there is a special place in hell for my great grandmother and I know she’s sitting there right now. (Maybe it’s my turn to forgive, huh? Lol)

Well, now my dad is arranging a trip to Mexico City within the next couple of weeks or so. He wants me to come with him. I’m not sure why he wants me, of all of us, to come, but I can’t let him down.

Honestly, I don’t want to go. It’s dangerous in Mexico right now. Plus, I can’t afford it. I barely have the time to take at work and I was trying to save it to go back to Dallas for interviews after the new year. I’ve only seen my grandmother all of 4 times in my life, and one of those times I was only a year old, so I’m not all that close to her. I don’t have any unresolved issues with her or anything like that. I love her very much, but I don’t feel an overwhelming need to go say goodbye to her… This is just the truth.

I do however feel that if my dad needs me, I must go. Period. My dad needs ME for once, instead of the other way around. I have to go.

This is not going to be easy…


Lord, please put your hands on my grandmother, father, and the entire Morales family. Please draw my grandmother close to You and reveal Yourself to her. I don't know what her relationship with You looks like--only You know that. Please envelope her spirit and mind and bring peace to her heart. Please do the same for my father. I love You, Lord. Thank You for Your unending hand in all of our lives. In Jesus' name.