A Story Paralleling a Reality
Note to the reader: One of the cultures that I enjoy learning about is the Hispanic culture. A dear friend of mine shared a story of how her grandparents lived in their native country. I asked her if I could respectfully present her story on here with a few changes to it. She said, “Yes.” Here is the story:
By 6:00 AM, my grandfather was already awake, not because he had woken up a bit earlier, but because he had spent the entirety of the night watering his fields. On these days, which were frequent each week, he would work under the moon, illuminated by a sole lamp, until the burning sun made space for the moon once again.
By 5:00 AM, my grandmother was already awake. She would wake up early to nixtamalize corn, take it to the corn mill that was located at the edge of the village, grind the corn, bring it back home to knead it, make little balls of masa, flatten them, heat them until they hardened, and throw tomatoes and chili peppers atop the “comal” to make a sauce out of them later. By that time, she would wake up her 5 children, have them get ready for school, give them tortillas that were rolled after placing the sauce she started earlier on a side of it, and see them leave the house to go to school. Afterwards, she would boil beans in a cooking pot, make little balls of masa from what remained, flatten them, heat them until they hardened, and throw tomatoes and chili peppers atop the “comal” so to make a sauce out of them later. Once the beans, tortillas, and sauce were all ready, she would carry the cooking pot, the “tortillero,” and a small plastic container with sauce inside, down to the fields to have my grandfather eat something. She would stay there at the field, working beside my grandfather, until an hour before the burning sun made space for the moon. She would get home, and begin to boil more beans or make a soup, so when my grandfather arrived at the entrance, the food was ready to eat.
A decade ago, they had married. My grandfather was 16 and my grandmother was 14. They married after having very few interactions. By age 15, my grandmother was already pregnant with her first child. She had said that, while being pregnant, she still played with dolls because she had not assimilated that she was already a “woman.” Afterwards, my grandmother would either be carrying a small baby, be pregnant with one, or both. She would go on to give birth at age 15, 17, 19, 21, and 22. It was only when she learned about contraceptions that she was able to avoid becoming pregnant. However, she had to hide from my grandfather that she was taking precautions for herself, because my grandfather would have beaten her badly if he learned that she was taking precautions to avoid pregnancy.
A couple of years before their marriage, both of them were stopped from going to school after finishing the 3rd grade. My grandfather’s parents had him stop going to school because they wanted him to assist his father in the work at the fields. My grandmother’s parents had her stop going to school because, as her parents told her: “Why should you study if you’re going to get married and be a housewife anyway?” By age 10, my grandmother was already changing the diapers of her younger siblings, making food, and doing domestic work.
My grandmother lived a very terrible marriage. Many times, it reached the point where she would look at a resting dog, and think to herself: “I wish I had that dog’s life.” Although she would repeatedly run away with her children to her mother’s house just 2 streets away, she would always return to her husband because she could find no answer to her mother’s agitated question: “How are you going to support you and your children by yourself?” Thus, my grandmother stayed with my grandfather until his early death. However, before his death, he had put all that he had, his land and his house, under my grandmother’s name. Therefore, after his death, my grandmother was forced to support herself and her children. Till this day, she continually discovers that she could have supported herself and her children all along. She just needed to be allowed to do so.