As I have aged, what I believed before as normal has ceased to exist. For example, I use to believe that friends would last for a long time or that every one would have a high school sweetheart. Well neither of that existed for me and my mother's words of "there are no true friends in life seems" even more prophetic in actuality.
The same now applies to family members I assumed were always family members. But time, recognition, death and reunitement has proven that those family members were not really related. With Facebook, family reunifications have become somewhat possible for me and it has been good to connect with my cousin even if only over the phone especially because he's only 6 months younger is a the historian of the family in ways that no Mormon or genelogical website can do especially when there are no papers along the way.
Part of the unity urge has been driven by the fact that my father died 31 plus years ago and only lived to the age of 30 so the desire for him is ever present and this clan are the children of his sister who was also from the same father. We are cousins, both my father and his sister had an additional Camacho brother formerly known as Miguel Angel or Mike and he too has now died.
These three sets were the Camacho clan but as my brother Alberto said, we were the better looking ones and we all laugh. However, the clan did not end there but the Camachos did. My father was from my grandmother's second marriage, the first clan of three children were the Guardados, two of whom have already died too (we are bewitched: Jose and Rosa). Then there were four more each from different father's (yes she was) but all were raised that they were all siblings because they came from the same mother and that wasn't questioned but the fatherly differences were ever present. So I could tell the difference but put it to the back.
As we aged, it became ever present that different grandfathers made us all different, because we developed into unique families however, amongst the Camachos we knew were were bounded because of the same grandfather/grandmother. Besides death and time we associated more with my mother's clan because out of fear from the Camachos however the Segura cousins could also be dangerous which was ignored by my mother because it was her family but the Camachos were related to me so I sensed that difference. Not that I wanted to hang out with them either because they were crazy but they were all I had from the death of my father. I felt amputated and worse, my appearance came from the Camachos not the Seguras, if I looked like the Seguras maybe I would have felt different but I didn't have my mother's good looks. I had the Apache's look especially the ugly ones so how could I negate my blood if I looked like them. The eagle looking semi crossed eyes and nose, high cheek bones, fat and dark black hair were always reaffirmed by southern Mexican females who would say "your not my type of guy". Or the man from Jalisco telling me, "you look like you are from Sonora", I looked Yaqui Indian to him. We have chubby faces.
But time and drama separated us for 20 years and honestly I felt we were excommunicated because my father's half older brother Jose Guardado, died, then the half older sister Rosa Guardado died and a week later, Miguel Angel Camacho died. This family is cursed. And we were not notified about the deaths until after they were buried and weren't really invited. I learned about Jose's death because my eldest cousin from Maine went to visit my sister after the burial and then we learned of his death. Rosa, she was a Jehovah Witness so they only invite themselves and Miguel even less though I knew he was sick and had body parts amputated due to his diabetes complications and lack of attention. He was hacked to death. I'm not quite sure I wanted to attend, but an invite would have been nice. And those younger half siblings of my father by now have been long and gone so that time, lack of acknowledgement have really turned us all into the strangers we have always been, even if we shared memories in the 70's.
However, sensing that the female Camacho might die, curosity, outreach and wanting to see what pictures they had of my father we reunited. I had actually already seen Lorenzo but I wanted more. And we met with only the first cousins from the Camacho's. They were happy to see us as men in our late 30's early 40's and in a flashback we were little kids of time once lived, except our little kids were also partaking in the newness of these people partially confused. It felt good but the reception was not so warm from the Camacho aunt because in all honesty, we hadn't seen eachother in 20 years. We had developed into unknown people even if we were related. I didn't even recognize the half sister Rosa of my father because I hadn't seen her in 15 years when she had black hair and was gray haired. The aunt was not receptive nor warm but she gave my brother a painting of my father as a toddler which I never knew existed. She insisted we take it and maybe felt it was due to us. Even I don't recognize my father in that baby picture.
Then as I was changing my son, a hand stretched across and stated, "nice to meet you". It was my father's youngest half sister Angie who I hadn't seen in 20 plus years and 1-2 times in 30 years. I found it odd I did not get a hug or share a moment in the past as she's only 8-9 years older, I remembered her, how could she not remember me. I felt it was a sympathy shake but that confirmed for me what I have always known is that those half siblings of my father are not really my siblings first because they were of a different father and that difference only developed through the years proven by the fact that we don't look a like.
Yes, I understand it's all in the mind and attitude but there is a difference that cannot be denied that we are just too distinct even if they all came from my grandmother which I don't deny they have a bond but that bond does not carry over to me much like my cousins' cousins are not related to me. And this is hard for me to say because I have an older sister from a different father but this has always been an issue of divide because she felt she was different and now that she has young adult children, she feels that because my niece and nephew are not Camachos that they are treated less than. Even now that there are 10 Camacho grandchildren, my sister has stated enough times that there is a distinction of treatment from my mother and my brother's but we did the best we could in terms of inviting them to places or spending money on them when they were kids though we never received the same in return. Even my niece and nephew feel that there is a distinction side themselves away from us but not because we exclude them. If we battle it's personality clashes.
And when I least expect it, I get a slap in the face that only proves my point. At my maternal grandmother's funeral in Mexicali, my sister out of the blue states, "let me introduce you to my niece". I was shocked by that because my sister was never raised by her father and never had contact with them then 40 years later, I'm introduced to her niece. I was blindsided and jeolous my sister belonged to somebody else and was never truly my sister by mother/father.
That hurt but I brush that aside and acted normal because our communication still continues but down deep inside I know the difference and realized I never had a Camacho sister because we were all male offsprings from Julian Padilla Camacho.
As for my father's family, I only have 1 aunt that still lives.
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