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As we walked past the brownstones in the Brooklyn Heights area, we spoke about the little things that are so important to children at that age. We had just turned down Schermerhorn Street, the block where we lived and I was listening to Tony (later, el padre). He was in the first grade, and was chattering about something or other that he had learned in school that day. Suddenly, Chiqui pulled away from my hand and ran towards the street. Fortunately, he was grabbed by a very old woman who seemed to come out of nowhere, and she stopped him from running into traffic. Back safely on the sidewalk, she picked up my little brother in her arms and gave him a kiss and said, " Y este es el Chiquitín!". She put him down and gave both Tony and me a kiss, calling us by our first names and murmuring some other things we no longer remember. She had tears running down her face and we were frightened. I turned just for an instant to take Chiqui firmly by the hand and turned around to thank the lady......The old woman was gone.
If you've ever been on Schermerhorn Street, you'll remember that it was a very loooooong block. The steps leading up to the brownstones were also not short. We had not heard any gate being opened [everybody's gate creaked] nor the closing of a door. She was too old to move so quickly. We looked everywhere up and down the street, but the old woman had disappeared. We could not figure out where she could have gone. We ran scared down the block and into our building which was in the middle of Schermerhorn Street. There, we found our father crying. My mother told us to be very quiet because he had received a telegram saying that his mother, Cristina, had died. This was especially hard for him because his father had died suddenly when he was three and he, his mother and his one brother were very close and were the only family he had. He had a picture of his mother in his hands and when we asked to see it,..............you guessed it, it was the picture of the old woman whom we had seen.
It gives me goose-pimples even writing this down because my grandmother had never seen Chiqui. He was just a baby when we came to New York. As a physician, I tend to be skeptical about these types of matters, and Tony, as a priest, definitely is skeptical about these kinds of things. Nevertheless, whenever my father would mention our grandmother, we always just looked at each other and said nothing. Chiqui does not remember anything at all about that day.
Well, that is the end of my "dos cuentos". Our parents brought us up with a strong sense and respect for family, a love of music, stories about our island and respect for our culture. For the most part, they were both raised, my mother especially, without much family. Their fiftieth wedding anniversary is in 1999. We hope to give them a sense of their family as our gift on that special day, and continue to search fervently for "nuestros muertitos". By the way,.......I was named for both my grandmothers.
Pulse aquí para leer el segundo cuento pero escrito en español. Pase a la página del padre:
Regresar al Intro de Muertito Heaven, el Agora y el Metabuscador
Origin of the OQUENDO surnameOQUENDOs in the middle ages
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09/16/98
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©Copyright Oct.30, 1996. Ana C. Oquendo Pabón, M.D., José Antonio Oquendo Pabón, Pbro., STL. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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