| Straight from my heart: La familia |
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Sometimes it takes a crisis to bring family together. ¡Que lastima! What a shame that families only come together for weddings, funerals and serious illness. My family discovered two weeks ago that my brother Don Gallegos has stomach cancer. He went through surgery, but the cancer is too advanced, so the tumor was not removed. My nieces and nephews arrived to be near their dad. My sister Debra, and brother, Larry have been at the hospital daily. I wanted to write something about family even before my brother’s illness brought us together. I was thinking about writing about Family First after I wrote my first column and mentioned the names of my friends who rallied around me when I was going through the big “C” in my life and I mentioned my family just as family. I should have mentioned my son, Art who took me to get Chemo every three weeks, my daughter Bernie and grandchildren Missy and baby Raelynn for staying with me and cleaning my house. I stayed with my sister Debra after my first Chemo treatment and my brother Don took me to Chemo when Art could not. Don and Art were also there at a moments notice to drive me to doctor’s appointments and other things as I could not drive myself.
What is family? In a perfect world, family would be a mother and father and children born of love growing up in perfect harmony in a home full of love and caring. But, we do not live in a perfect world. Many families in today’s world are torn apart by divorce. Children are born to single women and raised without a father image. And even in a mother/father/children family, things don’t always go happily ever after. Even though people are born with the same blood, personalities sometimes clash. I think of the term sibling rivalry and know it exists. I’ve always been a people watcher, a listener, an observer. Sometimes brothers and sisters actually like each other and that’s a blessing. I am blessed with my brother Don being a friend. We have even had ESP between us. It was my brother Don who helped me through the tough emotional times in my life. He became my spiritual advisor. One thing I noticed between us is that we had an unconditional love for each other. Even though we know all about each other, we still like each other. I didn’t have a sister until I was 18 years old. My sister Debra was three-years-old when I married. When she was four, I had twins, Mary and Rick and the three of them grew up as brother and sisters. It wasn’t until I was almost forty and divorced that Debra and I became close as sisters and friends. She actually helped me grow up in a big wide world I had been shielded from. Debra and I have different personalities but we have found a common ground. We have become friends and we love each other unconditionally. This didn’t happen automatically; we worked on it for years.
I grew up in a family with a mother and father who were married. I was the oldest of four children. We went to church on Sundays as a family and my father worked from sun up to sun down so we hardly knew him as children. Not having a sister in my youth, I made friends with school mates that took the place of having a sister. My brothers and I bickered all the time. I don’t even remember what we fought about, but when I knew I hated my brother and he hated me; my mother would sit us on kitchen chairs facing each other and make us hug each other until we started to laugh. Another thing, I remember is when we were fighting, my mother would get out pails of soap and water and make us wash walls. We had the cleanest walls in the neighborhood. I don’t know why brothers and sisters fight or can’t get along. I do know that sometimes we show our worst selves to those closest to us, which is our family. We show our best selves to the world.
Sometimes we go outside our family to find friends. We seek out people who have common likes and dislikes, values and communication styles. We find people who fill a special need in ourselves – like my other self – or soul mate. A soul mate can be anyone who feeds and nourishes our body, mind and soul.
Before we look for friends and soul mates, we have to find ourselves. If we don’t know who we are or if we don’t like who we are, we will never find that friend or soul mate. How do we do this? The first thing we must do is forgive ourselves for everything that makes us feel guilty. Start each day as if it were our last day on earth. The past is gone, so why relive it. Have a happy heart even, in times of adversity. This takes practice but everyone can do it. Don’t try to be someone we are not. The best person we can be is ourselves. Each of us is unique with a purpose in life. We have to find our uniqueness and our purpose and thank God for our existence. Every day wake up with a smile. Thank God for another day. Greet everyone you meet with a smile and watch all the smiles come back to you. Treat your family as good as you treat your friends and watch how the world becomes a better, happier world.
Straight From My Heart ~ Magdalena Gallegos.
Magdalena Gallegos is a writer, playwright, historian, and publisher (Southwest Magazine).
© 2010 The Weekly Issue/El Semanario, Inc.
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