Way to play.

Hello, fellow bloggers!

We left off on my moving to Roselle Park.
We got a great deal on an upstairs apartment in a complex next to Warinanco park. The place was gorgeous, calm and definitely the right choice when thinking about raising a child.

I was a very active child, I loved going to the park and playing; from morning to night.
Of course two things stood in my way.
1) School ... which of course didn't really bother me during the summer time, and that's the park is extra perfect to go and play.
2) My mother ... it's not like she wanted me to not go out, but she had no choice. I had to stay with babysitters so she can go work and we could keep that place.
Since I wasn't able to go out as much as I wanted, I decided to improvise indoors.
I would get so much crap from our land lord and the downstairs neighbors for rollerblading in my living room, or jumping rope.
What was I supposed to do? I had to find a way to entertain myself, and had no backyard.
The worse thing was that my down stairs neighbor worked all night, and so he was obligated to sleep during the day. (Guess he didn't really get much of that because of me.)

The day my luck switched over was when my grandmother decided to come visit here from Uruguay. I was so excited! Who wouldn't be? I wouldn't have to suffer through another woman telling me what to do, and pretending to give a shit about me only 'cause she got paid. I would be able to be with my grandmother and my mother wouldn't have to stop working. Of course, it seemed that that was the way it was supposed to be at the time, but I see now that it wasn't. My mother should have been able to spend more time with her, and yet she couldn't. But that was the price we had to pay to be in that country.

That summer, I felt liberated!
My grandmother and me went to the park every single day. She would sit out by the track while I rode my bike for hours around it. Just in a circle. 'Round and 'Round. It was so much fun, I loved it.  
Other times we would go to this pool thingy.
Very specific...I know.
It was a type of fountain with a giant pole in the middle that would shoot out water. All the kids would go there during the summer, I went alone, but at that age everything was so easy that I would always end up with a new friend to play with.
Safe to say i busted my ass a few times during that summer, also...ha-ha.

My grandmother became my best friend that summer. I wasn't ready to let her go and go back to the other women when she left, but the day came that she did. It was inevitable.

My mother asked her to stay but she chose to come back here because of her other daughter. She claimed that "she needed her to go back". And that was it, we said our goodbyes.

After that, I went back to babysitters and when September came rolling by, I became school bound.
Fun time, at least I can keep myself busy with other things. One of them being...

kindergarten crushes.

A bad ending, can be the start of something good.

Guess what?....

I'm B A C K!

This time with another one of my memories. This one, not as exciting or tragic, but it has it's glitches.
Since my mother and me were newbies in this new land, we had no where to go, except for my great-aunt's house. Back at that time, we used to all get along with each other. She let us stay in one of the rooms in the house for a couple of months and even helped mom get a job.
Everything seemed perfect. From my perspective of course. I went to school, focused on trying to learn this new language that was being thrown at me, so what was I going to notice?
Other than the fact that my age didn't really give me much access to the adult life.
That house, held many special moments for me, like for example, my 5th birthday. It was the only one that we got to celebrate there but it was amazing. I remember not having made friends yet so I had to make up some to invite. The table had a deliciously tempting cake on it, and surrounding it were my toys. I had put my favorite barbie next to a stuffed version of Pikachu ; since he was her date. It seems like a very lonely birthday party, but believe it or not I was very happy. I had my mother, who was getting the best out of this experience here, and my aunt with my cousins whom I really didn't know but liked very much.

Of course, now all those memories, including the birthday are just a haze to me. Covered by an angry-looking dark cloud.

That aunt, who I really loved for her hospitality and support turned out to be not so exact.
Like I mentioned before, there are things that as a child you don't realize, but sooner or later everything comes to the surface.
Every time my mom speaks about her time living there with me, I sense her whole body cringing. As if she recalls times that she wishes she didn't and couldn't. But alas she does, since ; in fact, somethings in life, never leave you. She told me, once I was older, about my aunt. How after a while of helping my mother out with finding a job she started charging my mother for time spent there, she also mentioned how in just a matter of months, my mother was capable of going from her current weight to how much she weighed when she was 18. Don't be fooled, my mother isn't the type of woman who goes on diets or exercises. She's the type that, if you see her losing weight, then you know something is wrong.
How did I look over this?
I was angry with my mother, because she chose not to do anything about it. But there's not much you can do when you have no where to go and no other family.
I was angry with myself, because I couldn't do anything before about it. But that's inevitable.
I was angry with my aunt, because family doesn't do that. They never stab each other the way she did to my mom. But...oh, wait. There is no 'but' for her. Everything she did was a choice. Not like she was forced into torturing my mother.
The time came when we got to leave that hell hole and start to truly find the meaning of "the american dream".

And where is that you may ask yourself?

Well, ....

Where mostly everything started.

Sarah, back here again with another "fascinating" tale of my life.

I remember being at the airport. My 4-year-old mind at the time still couldn't wrap itself around the thought that I was leaving a part of me, my family behind as soon as I stepped foot on that plane.

The airport was rushing, the people inside were like molecules in a solid, compressed and with little liberty of movement. I felt claustrophobic, but everything seemed like a wonder. Seeing this for the first time ever, made it that much more special.

A tall lady approached my mother and me, while we were picking up our baggage so it can get loaded. She seemed friendly. The kind that leaves you to wondering whether it's real; or fake. Then again, how was I suppose to know the difference?

I grabbed on to my mother's side as if looking for some sort of protection, but I knew that no harm would come my way. At least not from her. She knelt down next to me. My stare followed her descending movement.
"May I ask where it is that you are traveling to?"
"The first world"
What a brilliant reply! I was always listening in on the conversations that my mother used to have with my family about going to the states, and being able to work and live in the first world.

They both laughed, as if saying, "let's hope this innocence never leaves her."

The airplane ride was all a haze. It takes about 16 hours to go from Uruguay to U.S.A.
16 hours that I dedicated to sleep, sleep, sleeping.

It's amazing how one minute I was with my family, saying our last goodbye's and the next time I opened my eyes, I was at J.F.K airport.

That is where I began everything...  

And soon we all reach paradise.

Name is Sarah.
I've had a pretty great life growing up. My mother raised me all alone ; well , not really. I can't ignore the love and support we both had from our family. My dad split for "x" motives, leaving us to fight together. It was the two of us against the world.
I never missed him in my life. On the contrary, I felt complete without him. My mother gave me the love of both parents, and raised me better than ever.
I had everything that I could ever want, and what she couldn't get for me ; because of money issues, etc. ; I didn't mind not having.
'Till the age of 4, I lived in a small 'hood' in the department of Montevideo. I never really paid attention to it, as a child. I went to school, got home, played, and slept. It was a rigorous routine for me that I followed everyday, ha-ha.
In 2000, visas were being handed out here in Uruguay, for people who wanted to travel to the "first world country" known as U.S.A. At that time, we had just lost my great-grandmother to skin cancer. I can't remember much of her, other than what I've been told and what I see in pictures. I chose, all my life, to remember the image of the woman with big amounts of curly gray hair on her head,  and a smile that can make you believe in anything.
Why do I want that to be the way I remember her?
Because, I'd rather picture her full rosy cheeks, the wrinkles on her skin that had no intent of hiding her age, and the blissfulness that would be brought on to those who approached her. That is a better memory, rather than the one that my family faced in reality.
Like I mentioned before, I don't remember much, but as I grew up, my questions about my childhood got more and more persistent.  
The day arrived when I decided to ask about my great-grandmother's illness. She passed away, at the age of 91. By the time it was discovered, it was already too advanced. My mother wanted to keep out the details but I begged her to tell me. I wanted to feel like I was there, not as an annoying 4 year old but how I am now, with enough knowledge to take on such a matter. Though, even at this age, I don't think that sight is accepted. At any age? I doubt it. It's not something I wish someone to see, or have happen to them. The way she described every second that my great-grandmother was in the hospital, was almost unbearable to listen to, like I was able to live those moments in my head, as if reliving a memory.
The tears my mother shed, were tears that I did too.
"I was the only granddaughter to actually show up and take care of her. No one, visited her, because they claimed to not want to see her in so much pain, and yet, I think more pain was what she felt without the presence of her loved ones supporting her."
My mothers words, are etched into my brain.
"When I walked into her room, I would always be surprised that a woman who was once so strong and so willing, was in such a state. You can't imagine something like that, not even close. Her face was unrecognizable from all the operations, and of course, how would it be possible to recognize someone with half of their face almost gone? The fact that you can see that section not covered with skin, was the worse part. But I looked past it, because I knew who it was, and she was and always will be a part of me."
What would have happened if they had discovered this earlier?
I mean, no one lasts forever, but did she really have to leave this world like that?
I've dreamed with her, that I was sitting by the hospital bed, and she was trying to talk to me, though she couldn't. I would calm her down and tell her that I wish I knew her better. I reassure her every time that, she isn't remembered as just a family member who died from cancer, but a woman who worked all her life, in poverty, to bring up her children. Someone to look up to, not someone to pity.
"There came a time, when she had spent so much in that hospital that she started to get impatient. She would tell me, tell her daughter, that it was time for her to go. Time to give in to this cancer, and let God help with the rest. It was her wish, what she desired mostly at the moment. But we were so selfish. I regret now, what I thought was a good idea back then."
Aren't we all though, in those situations? Selfish , I mean.
Who wants to tell the doctors to stop everything they are doing and put an end to their loved one's life?

You'd think back to that decision of not granting their wish with regret, remorse. Maybe, you don't. I know I would though. I would hate to know that even in their last moments in this world, they were suffering, instead of helping put a stop to it.
To think, she wouldn't have had to spend so much time connected to tubes that feed her, and remove all matter from inside her.
To think, she might have left with at least a little dignity and peacefulness knowing that her misery would end.
Sure it meant not seeing each other again, but soon we would all be reunited in paradise again. Or at least that is what I would like to think. I would like to imagine a paradise, one with infinite happiness, and one that allows you to eternally be with anyone you please.
I know , I'll see her again soon, along with some other people who are not with me today physically...