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Edited on Sun Feb-13-11 02:07 PM by Rozlee
Emmanuela was born in a fishing village around Cancun in Mexico in the latter part of January of 1911. That was a few decades down the road before the Hyatt Regencies and developers drove the already impoverished villagers away to make the place a popular tourist resort.
She was the youngest of four surviving children; many of her brothers and sisters died during outbreaks of Diptheria and the Spanish Flu. A young man in the village, Apolonio, fell in love with her and wanted to marry her when she reached the age of sixteen. But, a gringo stranger, a bounty hunter from Louisiana, blew into the village looking for a wanted man. She caught his eye. He was a charmer. He married her and they had six children in between his visits to her village over the next eleven years; always telling her that he was working to make arrangements to get her to be able to live in the United States with him. You can see where this is going, right? The suspicious area priest discovered the Cajun charmer already had a wife and children in Louisiana. He started the process of nullifying the "marriage."
At a time when Latino people were extremely judgemental of fallen women, the young man, Apolonio, the villager that had fallen in love with her, was unique among men. He married Emmanuela and never cast judgement on her, daring others to do so in his presence. He was kind to her children, but understood the strain living in the village was for her. He passed the family across the border to Texas.
There, Apolonio, Emmanuela and the oldest kids worked the cotton fields, traveling to several farms in the states. The red bugs that lived in the dirt were fierce, burrowing under their skin and causing itching that no salve could relieve. They worked in 90-100 degree weather for hours, sometimes without even water breaks. They lived in bare shacks on the different farms provided by the owners, with missing boards on the roofs, being drenched at night when it rained. Eventually, Apolonio was able to become a journeyman plumber and the family's fortunes improved a bit.
Emmanuela caught tuberculosis when she was 34. Two of the children had died before in Mexico. One from a congenital heart defect, the other of an infection that sounded like Meningitis and could have been treated with modern antibiotics had they existed then. Emmanuela was taken away by Texas State officials and put in a TB hospital for a year. But, she remained sickly for the rest of her life; having a lung removed, always being in and out of state run chest hospitals. They had wanted more children, but Emmanuela had had a final pregnancy by the Cajun that had caused a miscarriage and a high fever and almost killed her. Septic abortion, no doubt. But, when she entered the TB hospital that first time, she discovered she had conceived. The state told her she had to abort. She was a humble, trusting woman. She went along with it. When she was 49, she had thought she had undergone menopause a year before. She was puzzled by her pregnancy-like symptoms. Well, surprise. Stranger things have happened. The baby was a girl weighing in at 3 1/2 pounds. She was born at home and it was a miracle she lived. Her much, much older, doting siblings always teased her that the reason she's so weird is that she was born from an egg that was past it's expiration date.
The Cajun's children hated him, although Emmanuela never spoke ill of him. A lot of it was loyalty to Apolonio. Maybe it was due to a guilty conscience at knowing of the suffering of his illegitable children while he and his own by his legitimate wife lived in comfort; the Cajun and a relative sponsored Emmanuela and Apolonio for American citizenship. Mighty fine of them. The Cajun never gave them a thin dime otherwise. Still, the kids managed to do OK for themselves. Three became business owners opening up a beauty shop, a plumbing parts store and a foundation and leveling service. Two became RNs, one civilian, one military.
But, Emmanuela never really was 100% health-wise from her bout with TB. She still insisted on working lighter duty to support the family such as taking in laundry and sewing for well-to-do Anglo families. Many were wary around her. That incessant cough, you see. It was a blessing when Rifampin came around. But, the damage had been done to her respiratory system already. She was always short of breath, but still kept a spotlessly clean house and cooked for her increasing brood of grandchildren. The air in the house was always redolent of carne guisada, fresh torillas, tamales, and capirotada.
Apolonio died of a heart attack at 74 while doing a plumbing job. He'd kept working full-time, distaining his childrens' offers to support him and his wife. The death of their patriarch devastated the family. He'd been a wonderful man, a gentle, kind and loving husband, father, and grandfather. It was astounding. Everyone had always assumed that Emmanuela, with her very poor health, would predecease him.
Emmanuela died at 86 with her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren around her. Estaba bueno, she said in the moments before she died. Todo estaba bueno. It was good. It was all good. It can be only hoped that she meant that her life had been good. That all of it, despite it's heartbreaks, suffering and shattered dreams, had been good.
She would have been a 100 years old on January 28th, 2011. Only our family remembers and stood around her grave on January 28th, placing flowers on it and on Apolonio's next to hers. I was her youngest daughter by Apolonio. She was a wonderful woman. She never hurt a soul.
She never gave massive tax breaks for billionaires. If she could have, she would have made sure money had gone to the poor and unfortunate in our society. Because, she knew what it was to be poor and unfortunate at one time. She would have given funds to unwed mothers; because she knew what it was like to be alone and censured by a village for being naive and trusting and having children herself out of wedlock. She would never have been able to watch the injustices in today's medical industrial complex. She received free healthcare for her TB, it's true. But, it was grudging. The wealthier patients were allowed to live off grounds in the community while the poor like her were treated like lepers and were taken away like prisoners. And when they sat outdoors in the back patio of the State Chest Hospital, they were treated to the sight of the other means of leaving the hospital besides the front door--the fine view of the cemetery of those buried from the hospital.
So, Happy effin' Birthday, Ronald Reagan. You did a lot for America. Tip of the hat to your 100th birthday. I'm sure the people of the U.S. would stare blankly if anyone said "And Happy Birthday, too, to Emmanuela Reyna" during the Superbowl. But, little secret here, people. She did a whole lot of good in her little corner of the world. She was loved whole-heartedly and desperately by people that respected her for the good she did and the person she was. Not for the obscene wealth she gave to already rich millionaires and the bigotry she inflamed by making a speech during a campaign stop in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the small town where 3 civil rights workers were murdered.
Happy Birthday, Mama. We will always love you.
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