When I was three-years-old, my mother, brother, and I emigrated to the United States from Guatemala to reunite with my father in Miami, FL. My father, an undocumented immigrant, was in Miami to work and support his young family back home. My mom told me we were just supposed to visit him and return—but that wasn’t what happened. My mother said my father found it hard to let us go, and she decided to leave it all behind at the chance that this would be better for us all.
For the past thirty-three years, I had not once gone back to Guatemala. I had not met ninety percent of my family. Personally, I did not know where I was from.
When we did decide to go back, it was without my father. He passed away very suddenly, and just as suddenly, our world came crashing down. The regret sunk in. I really started hating the things I couldn’t change. Why did we not come back together before? My parents always traveled back and forth to visit family, but my brother and I never joined them. Nevertheless, the present is now and here we were in Guatemala.
It was a brief three day journey. I told my mom that I needed to see just a couple things and it would be the most successful trip of my life. I wanted to see where they both grew up and where they both met and fell in love. And we got to do that.
As insignificant as it might look to someone else (“These are the fabulous pictures from Guatemala?”), it was treasure to me. This post highlights our second day there. We spent a day in my mom’s hometown of Jutiapa with her family. We all got to know each other, got to know the town and hear some stories, and most important of all, eat!
(By the way, that hard boiled egg my aunt was eating was found inside the hen after they cooked and cut it apart, and my mom is holding up the hen’s heart. And they were supposed to have more hen at the table, but one of the hens was stolen by a cat the night before. And that juice is tamarind juice, best juice ever and will always remind me of my childhood. And yes, there are three photographers within the same block, so I can’t move there and start a small business. Ha!)
A day in the life…
… imagining what could’ve been.