In the past year, thanks to facebook, I and some of my brothers have refound ourselves with the Camachos and other cousins, not Camachos but part of the same grandma Apache Clan. We share the same grandmother but not the same grandfathers so we are not the same but the ones that are interested in some relationship I'm open as long as they haven't been to jail and have been part of the criminal element. The kind that the FBI won't identify in background checks.
I reunited with my father's sister the Ramirez Machichi (if you ever doubt the Apache blood the name says its), the Guardados, at least one Steve who is the son of my father's half brother Jose whose now moved on to the afterlife. And the other Camachos' from El Centro, their father Miguel was Julian Sr. youngest brother from same father mother. However, I didn't know the two youngest daughters so its like I've never known them.
At first I was hesitant because of the feo look bordering on criminal. Even my father would tell his sister in the 70's that her kids we so ugly they itched and they would all laugh. We just looked different and part of it is because the Ramirez Camacho's (Adela) cousins to the Camacho(Miguel) Ramirez. In essence they are first cousins from both sides of their parents. My tia Adela's former husband was brother to my tio Mike's wife Tonia. So they have a deeper bond plus we've been separated for close to 28 years for all reasons--same reasons others are.
But as I'm getting older 43, I got the curiosity bug of my father and this is where the story begins sort of.
In 1969, before I was born an Apache woman who my grandmother went to for clarity saw my father in Imperial and told him "you won't see them grow up". This was before any of us were born and knew how many Camacho babies would come into being. My father later told my mother, "vieja pendeja" and went on.
Then life began. My father started his family, his sister Adela hers, his brother Miguel and the older half brother Jose already had one son older than me plus older half sisters too. Life proceeds and as nagging, other women, and tragedy take its hold within the next ten years, the father's disappeared. Adela's husband found a girlfriend and started another family but his pain was forgetting his three sons. Lorenzo my cousin said he didn't see his father from age 4 until age 15. My tio Jose, who was a family man found himself in a bar fight and in self defense killed the attacker but was still sent to San Quentin for manslaughter. Because he did not stop hitting the attacker with a brick the system punished him, in San Quentin he had to defend himself where he spent three years. By the time he came out by 1977, his wife had disappeared along with his two sons. I did not have memory of my tio Jose until 1977 when we attended his wedding in Fresno and I always assumed he never had children. It was not until the mid 80's when I heard he had had two sons but where never heard from.
By this time, in 1980, my father had died to a heart aneurysm and the local witch's prophesy had come true. He would not see his sons grow up. At the time of his death, his sons ranged from 10 years old to 14 months old. In ten years, all three of these families did not have their fathers to many circumstances. In addition, that older half sibling my father had, well the eldest Chepina (Josefina) was mentally handicap and would have these children. Hence to not lose them to the Mexican system DIF, my grandmother had adopted two Maria Herlinda and Edward, one was given up for adoption in Tecate, my tia Adela adopted Cynthia and in 1979, my grandmother adopted a set of twins Obed and Yesenia (Jehovah Witness fade). Then by 1984, more children were adopted by my tio Miguel and his wife Tonya and two more were lost into the Baja California adoption system in the Imperial Valley.
Technically, four families were fatherless but my tia Chepina's kids were really orphaned sort of but they at least ended up within the family. Yet they still missed they parents so there is their pain. But because my family frequented my tia Adela because she would leave my cousins with my mom while she partied we have memory of each other at least up until 1982. In a strange way, I see my cousin Cynthia as a Camacho because she was raised with us. My tia Adela sort lived near by in Gardena, Bell, Long Beach so we were near sort of. My tio Mike lived in El Centro so we rarely saw each other. That distance did make a difference because after 81 or 82 he had two female daughters who are the only female Camachos because I never had a Camacho sister from my father. But I've only seen them twice in my whole life time so we would not recognize eachother in public.
From this complicated history is where the curse of the father or parents begins: my dies, my tia Adela kids are divorced and disappears for 11 years, my tio Jose's prison stint lead to his ex wife forgetting him, keeping his kids away--she kidnapped them-- and remarried, my tia Chepina's mental condition forced the removal of her children (another story) and then later my tio Mike's wife died in the mid 1990's while the daughters were in their teens.
By 1995, four sets of my families were fatherless, parentless or motherless. Add to this tragedy from my mother's side, her youngest brother was killed in a truck accident in Baja California in the Valle de la Trinidad and three more children were fatherless in 1979 and by 1988, my aunt's husband Jesus also died and my two cousins Sandra and Jesus Jr. were also fatherless.
We lived through these tragedies in the 70's, 80's up to the mid 1990's. Even by 2010, my father's youngest brother Mike had succumbed to diabetes that I became an elder at age 39. Not that I attended the funeral because I and my brothers were excommunicated that even invites to death is not handed out. My tio Jose also died by 2005 in a car accident because some idiotic female driver crashed into his porch and pinning him. Hence why we all began to look for eachother on facebook or at least the ones we grew up with: my cousin Lorenzo, Cynthia and then Steve (son of my tio Jose) friended me that we were all looking for something we never had, communication. We could now do so free of the eternal conflicts between sister in laws or a manipulative grandmother.
And we did, with hesitation as only my brother Mario agreed to go along, in secrecy from our mother because she would not comprehend that even after 30 years my brother and I were looking for our father that could only be found in my tia Adela and the cousins. Because no matter how crazy or problematic we have the same blood. But the years had also taken its toll as we were all strangers, my tia Adela was also standoffish, maybe her dislike of my mother factored in. My father's youngest half sister Angie greeted me by only shaking my hand which was the strangest reception but then again, she's not my father's full sister and there is a difference. My tia Adela knew why Mario and I were there and she gave me a painting of my father as a two year old. Something I never knew existed.
We ate and then went to a park with my cousins Lorenzo, Cynthia, Morgan and Dennis and hung out at a park because that was the most convenient. As we saw each other as adults, we just marveled at the years that had gone by and were happy to see each other.
As I drove back, I could not help and wonder the tragedy we have all lived as if there was some curse because it might be nature but the fact remains that father's don't exist in my family. And it was not just our generation. My father was not raised by his father due to my grandmother, yet both of my grandmother's had also not had their fathers. My maternal grandmother's Alberta was abandoned by her father in the 1920's and lived another life in California and my paternal grandmother's father died in 1936 in Yuma on one of the reservations so she was also fatherless. And my children's maternal grandfather died two years before their births that the curse has carried over to them through no fault of them. They will never know a grandfather.
I just drove home with a tear in my eye. The Apache foreteller was telling the future truth we just didnt know it.
No comments:
Post a Comment