Francisco

I lived a charmingly different life…well, not really charming. Unlike Berkeley, I knew my father. His name was Pedro Emilio. My mother’s name was Selma. They had such a happy life. They met in Mexico City, Mexico on the “fifth of May”. Cinco de Mayo. The most celebrated holiday in all of Mexico. My father was a singer at every festival. That was his pleasure. Singing. He would sing almost all the time. The year was 1977. My dad was performing on stage when he looked down and saw a “fair young lady” as my dad called her, who would soon be my “mama-ma” as I called her.

Mama-ma’s birth place was Guanajuato, which started to become a boring place to her as a teen. Her birth name was Selma Alejandra Herrera. Her father Fernando worked in the field of coal mining. He was the toughest and most known coal miner in all of Guanajuato. Every man wanted to be him.

Mama-ma’s mother, Claudia Estella Jimenez, was a seamstress. She learned sewing from her mother, Estellitta, who was the fourth best seamstress. She soon followed in her mothers footsteps when she was just seventeen. She was nineteen when she met my father. After just a few months together they knew that they were meant for each other. They married in 1978, mama-ma having turned twenty, and father being twenty seven. They then moved to the United States. They decided to live in Chicago.

After I was born on April 16, 1995, Dad named me after his grandfather, who was involved in the Mexican Revolution. My dad once told me that I was starting to show signs of minor intelligence when I was just eleven months old. He told me that I would not only imitate whatever they did, but I would also give them signs telling them something. Each sign represented something I wanted. When I wanted mama-ma I would clap my hands three times. When I wanted father I would clap my hands two times. When I was hungry I would pat my belly like the drums. And when I was sleepy I would pat my eyes.

When I was just two years old my mother became severely ill. I father didn’t know what was wrong with her until she came home one day looking depressed.

“What is it honey?” Father asked. “What did the doctors say?”