THE  DREAM

At the hospital, a number of people are trying to comfort la Dra. Ana Cristina as her brother, elpadre (P. José Antonio Oquendo Pabón) lies senseless.  It has been weeks since he has reacted to anything and the neurosurgeons have given up hope.  There, he lies, hopeless, as la Dra. explains to the others that she has gathered them all because the last time he had gotten in touch with her via e-mail. He seemed delirious, almost crazy as he babbled about getting them together before it was too late.  The others stood there in silence looking upon elpadre wondering why he wanted to see them since most of them had never met in person, as elpadre groaned.  “He’s done that over and over” said Gloria, who had been there even before the doctora had arrived from Flatlands, USA,  “But I haven’t understood anything”.  “Eee’s sagin somtink nou,” said one of those present in his broken English, as another stood over elpadre and aimed her ear at his mouth only to hear him sigh, deeply, as when a deep feeling comes over you.  To understand the whole scene we have to go back to the end of 1999...

Several days later, on Janurary 10th of the New Year, elpadre was taken by his hermanas postizas,Carmín and Mara Brigantti, to Old San Juan with the instruction that he was to be ready at 2:00 o’clock down by the totem.  He was happy and within moments was knocking on the door of the Archivo Diocesano of the Archdiocese of  San Juan, Puerto Rico where his friend Else Zayas León was the archivist.  After asking for early 19th and late 18th century Marriage Dispensations to  impediments caused by consanguinity (first cousins, second cousins, etc., entering into marriage) he was shocked to find that they no longer exist.  He had been looking for the Dispensations given to different members of the PABON family which would ascertain the relationships between all those that appeared as parientes without clarifying how.  Being a grumbler, but determined not to be defeated, the good padre just sat down and thought about what to do.

You see, the Catholic Church in the 17th-19th centuries still did not allow marriages to the fifth degree without a formal Dispensation from Rome but had given the Puerto Rican Bishop the right to Dispense from these marriages because of a civil prohibition to "mix classes."  As there were few Spanish women, many men lived in concubinage or married descendants of freed slaves who had somewhat "whitened" in time.  These dispensations allowed men to marry very close cousins and until there were enough women, first cousin marriages became almost common. Interestingly enough, another reason why these endogamic practices were strong was to keep property in the family: that’s where the Puerto Rican custom "los primos se exprimen" comes from.

At any rate, elpadre was determined not to lose the day so he asked for the first box of Ciales material.  As it was only 9 a.m., he decided to make the most of it looking through the dispensation records of one of the towns some of the PABON ancestors lived in.   Else brought out two boxes and let him know that there was more.  But there, none of those he was interested in were mentioned in either box.  One surname, however, kept cropping up -- DE RIVERA (later the "de" would be dropped and the "Rivera" would be as common as "Jones" or "Smith") as elpadre passed page by page of almost unreadable material sometimes because of the ink and sometimes because of the handwriting. He was three hours into but had not written one single annotation when he found the dispensation of the son of a Pedro Miranda and Juana Salgado with the daughter of Pedro's cousin, which made him realize that the full name was Pedro MIRANDA DE RIVERA  and that his parents, Venancio MIRANDA and Maria Belen RIVERA, and her brother, Fernando RIVERA all appeared on the dispensation. That’s when it occurred all at the same time causing elpadre to blow a fuse.

He realized  that he had seen Fernando's name in an earlier dispensation, that Pedro and his wife were his maternal 4th-great-grandparents and that all those DE RIVERA might be related.  So, he started from scratch, wondering where the muertito guides that had helped him before were hiding out.  Over the course of the next months he found more than 150 related DE RIVERA and allied families, such as Díaz, Otero, Negrón, Salgado, Rodríguez, etc., requesting dispensations from as far as 5th degree impediments.  Elpadre was overwhelmed.  What made it worse was that he remembered that the emails from the shaman mentioned the Negrón gal from Texas married to a Harold somebody or other; and a Ángel Otero Meléndez from niuyor’s barrio niuyersi and after checking the files he realized that they really were distant relations but not through the lines they were inquiring about.  Marking it top secret, elpadre began to ask around and found out that there were others: as he prepared the DE RIVERA booklet for publication he was introduced to an Archeologist at the January meeting of the Sociedad Puertorriqueña de Genealogía, who turned out descends from the patriarch who would have been born circa 1700; then María de los Angeles Negrón, Marji’s cousin wrote; then a Cristina Miranda, and a Hilda Blanch Miranda.

And that’s when it happened: elpadre was checking the www where he searched for an  old email he wanted to see again.  It was from a lady named Aurora Levins Morales who had posted a message about her Morales mentioning some RIVERA ancestor.  When elpadre found it he literally flipped, there it was clear as day: Diego DE RIVERA ancestor of the endogamic MORALES family of Naranjito.  (The eldest DE RIVERA he  found in the Dispensations were Tomás, Juan Lorenzo and Diego and they and their descendents were from Toa Alta, Corozal, Ciales, Morovis, Barros and Vega Alta.)  A few hours later, la Gloria found him mumbling, shaking like a leaf and with glazed eyes.

And now, there he was, groaning, mumbling, as the parientes, Marji Ortíz, Gloria Pérez, Angel Otero Meléndez, Ma. de los Angeles Negrón, Carlos Ayes, Aurora Levins, Cristina Miranda, Hilda Blanch, gathered around him watching in silence at the poor soul when, suddenly he opened his eyes and looked around the room.  He tried to sit up and said “What a dream!  What a dream!”  “Can you tell us?” said the shaman, sitting down next to him, listening and looking at Marji since the psychic abilities of the clan was well known by them all.

“I was in a strange place, it was dark and there were thousands of people around me, they walked without direction, they stared without seeing, lifeless, with tears in their eyes, looking around without finding what they were looking for” “Sounds more like a pesadilla” said Angel as Marji slapped at him to shut up.  “Then, as she passed by me, I thought I recognized mami Berta and as I called out to her she turned around and came to life, she looked beautiful, she seemed to be thankful and she bagan to caress me.  I wept like a baby as she kissed me.  Little by little I seemed to know others and as I named them they too came to life and the more I named “Compai Joe, Abuelo Luis, Bisabuelo Natalio, güeli Cristina, mama Ana, Chantó, Bárbara Vélez, Ma. Castora...”, the more came forth.  I couldn’t help it, I began to sob at the experience when a baby came up to me and touched me, she seemed limpid, dried out, and all I could think of was that the child represented so many babies, so many young ones that had died in their infancy.  As I reached out for her I said “Veronica” and found her smiling, calling out to other children, leading me by the hand so that I could draw them to me and name them all...  That’s when they told me  that everytime we name one of them there is a flowering of joy and of  life among them, that we should continue and keep bringing them out of the forgotten masses, that what we call genealogy to them is really the naming in love of each one of them, that we should join forces and help each other out, that in the long run our dreams will come true...”

And that’s when he saw all the people who stood around him and as they introduced themselves, he said “Well, what do you know.  The swarming of the parientes". The dream comes true.....