An oral story has been inherited in my family for generations. On a May afternoon, the time came for me to receive this heirloom from my grandmother. We traditionally spend our time together by enjoying her beloved plants from her porch in silence. On a blistering afternoon, we found ourselves on her porch swing. The smoke from the cigarette in her hand permeated the fresh air with vogue. She sighed, and so, breaking the silence, she began. “They woke up every morning in what you could call paradise. Paradise was found on the outskirts of Matamoros, Mexico, where peace once reigned.
A step outside presented sweet scents from the Rosales and the soothing sound of a rippling resaca. The vast, secluded landscape consists of orange, ebony and mesquite trees. Uneven red cobblestones beneath their feet radiated energy. In the midst of this place was the home of the influential Reyna family. Great, wooden doors on a plastered wall open into a vast room. A boy, a girl, and their grandparents inhabited the ancestral family home. The boy’s delightfully unkempt room, littered with sketches, and brandished a window facing the resaca in which he loved to swim.
Rosy walls surrounded the girl’s quaint room; toys and dolls were lined in cabinets. The handsomest room was the grandparents. It had grand, wood furniture, stone floor, elegant chandeliers, and crystalline windows. Thirty-five years later, on the outskirts of Matamoros, continued this paradise. A man, with his wife in mind, walked past the wild trees and Rosales. Despite its chaotic unkemptness, great peace and energy resonated in the landscape. He walked towards the worn, wooden front doors of the abandoned home where he and his deceased love once lived.
Her death created an air of melancholic indifference. The door creaked at opening and revealed dull, wooden floors. The man dragged his feet across the threshold and onto the wooden staircase. With his hands on the iron railing, he made his way up. Crossing the hall where his children once played and his wife watched starry-eyed, a sad smile crept on his face. The girl’s pink wall peeled, the dolls no longer seen, and the closet was empty. His boy’s walls were peeled, the sketches torn away, and emptiness haunted the room.
The man made his way towards his own room, where he travelled to the past, and pain and loneliness consumed him. Despite its abandonment, it continued to be as grand as always. Five years passed, and the man and his wife were laid to rest in their beloved home. This home was left to the grown boy, who loved the lands. He moves with his family to this paradise on the outskirts of Matamoros. In this isolated area, away from chaos, he began to care for the home. The walls were re-painted, and wooden floors and furniture polished. Love and warmth radiates again.
Joyful memories overwhelm him as he makes his way up the wooden stairs. Now, the girl’s room is remodeled, and the boy’s room has a TV, reflecting a contrast between past and present. The couple’s room is a trip to the past, as it continues to reflect its antique elegance. ” My grandmother sat me down to tell me about the rupture in this pattern. The story is an account of a past tradition in my families’ lives. Despite the children’s departure, eventually, they returned to their roots. Previously, it was told to generations in the house in paradise, but I heard it in Brownsville, Texas, instead.
My great-grandparents deceased, but my grandmother and her siblings never returned to the beloved home, breaking the ancestral pattern. Instability and violence in Mexico has exiled many families from their homes and roots. The injustice of the situation had an everlasting impact in my life’s course. This traumatic event would change my life’s purpose forever. I now dream to prevent injustice to rule the United States like it sadly has in Mexico. As a lawyer, I aim to maintain justice for the people of the United States and adhere to the law.
