The Story of Me.

Early Years

The first few years that we lived in Puerto Rico were the happiest for my parents. I was their only child for three years and they were very much in love. I can't remember much about that time, of course, so I rely on photographs. A picture of my father holding me in his arms in the carport of their little house. The car was red, my dress was blue; my father wore a white undershirt. A picture of me at Christmas, dressed like Buster Brown, wearing long pants, cute hat and my look alike doll in my lap. The floor was polished stone, the tree silver and white. A picture of me with my grandfather Aquilino; I am seated atop his solders wearing only diapers, earrings and necklace. He is holding my tiny baby hands to keep me from falling. His look is one of already having nipped at the bottle of Bacardi rum.

I love the pictures of my parents from those years. My father was lean and handsome and always wore his red hair cut in a flat top. My mother was young, beautiful and back then did not wear much makeup - she needed none as she was a natural beauty. In the late 60's she would do the Priscilla Presley teased up hair and black eyeliner thing and then in the 70's, the crazy blues and vibrant colors that all women wore.

There are many pictures of parties, pig roasts and the playa. It was easy and it was so much fun. And then there is the picture of me with my mother and grandfather taken on the day we left Puerto Rico. We were moving to the United States, to Virginia where my father's family was waiting and where we would live for the next few years. It was a journey for all of us. My mother had never left Puerto Rico, had never experienced cold weather or snow. My father was embarking on a new path of education and had enrolled at George Mason University. I would be attending preschool at St. Thomas More. My first language was Spanish then. I was truly terrified.

I don't remember much from this period either. I remember school was very difficult for me, I remember making macaroni art, my mother being pregnant with my brother. I remember eating potato pancakes for the first time. And I remember flying back to Puerto Rico with my mother so she could have my brother in her home country, surrounded by her family. She was extremely homesick and often very lonely during the years we lived in Arlington. My father's family was Irish/Scots and "the twins" - as my two aunts were referred to all their lives, truly love my mother and me. They were only 15 when I was born and they loved to fawn over me, always. They still love to tell me how old they were when I was born! 

Shortly after giving birth to my brother, my mother became pregnant again, with my sister. She told me many years later that the morning sickness was so bad for her and with a newborn to take care of and myself still little, she often thought of jumping from the balcony of their apartment. I have no recollection of any of this. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for her. My sister was born a year and fourteen days after my brother. She was not born in Puerto Rico. My mother could not make the trip. She came home from Columbia Hospital for Women dressed in a lovely, newly knitted yellow ensemble that my grandmother had made.I was not happy. My sister was a pink and blonde baby with a tiny upturned nose. She smiled all the time. She would always be the cute one, the cheerleader, the gymnast, the sugar plum fairy, the homecoming princess. During my entire formative years I would always be the opposite of her; chubby, slow, overfed, ungraceful and not cute.