Found Family

                         Found Family

                      My beloved sister

My sister, Mary Venus, and I were born in a small jungle village in Tampico-Alto Veracruz, Mexico. In 1941, World War II broke out. My father, a doctor with his small clinic, was doing humanitarian work medically helping the Natives in the burg. With an amazing surprise to the villagers, a German submarine had embarked in the town and started investigating the surrounding area. Finding out my father's profession visited him with a wounded, dying German soldier, and a gun pointed at his head. This became troublesome for my dad concerning his young children's safety and months after, brought my sister and me into the United States to the town of Mercedes, Texas. We lived with our grandparents until my mother was able to come into the United States. It took years and by the end of World War II; we reunited with our mother again.

 We became a family in Mercedes, Texas, and by 1958 had four sisters and brothers — a family of eight children. Mary Venus being the oldest became indifferent as we grew up; she was five years older than me, quiet and reserved, contrary to me that was robust, loud, and dim-witted. Mysteriously, I had inherited a monkey's gene in my system and acted like one. I enjoyed doing acrobatic on outdoors clotheslines; standing on top of the rooftops doing flip-flops and climbing the mesquite trees. It was not uncommon to tear my skirts and pig-tails untangled without my colored ribbons lose. However, Mary Venus, being old-fashioned and ladylike, found my ostentation ways disgusting.

All eight children went to the only public segregated schools with racial indifferences. It was before the Civil Rights Law came into effect in public schools. We all endured and suffered discrimination throughout our growing school years, which made Mary Venus bitter.

In her junior year, Mary Venus got a job working after school for the bus station and met a military man named John Boop staying at Harlingen Air Force Base. After she graduated from school, they married and left to live in Germany. I never heard from her until years later.

 By the sixties, I had graduated from high school and lived in Denver, Colorado. I got married and moved to the west side of the state, a small community for raising children. After making my residence, I lost contact with Mary Venus, as I was busy being a homemaker and a mother. I was very much involved with my sister Francis, a year younger than me, living in Dallas, and Lydia our youngest sister that lived in Detroit, Michigan.

It was during this time a dark domed cloud threatened the family with news of Vietnam not sparing us from the devastating hardships of the war. All three of my brothers went to war, except Danny, my youngest brother in our family. The Air Force shipped John and my sister Mary Venus to Guam. One of my brothers went to Vietnam, later to Cambodia, and came back wounded, and by the grace of God, all of my brothers survived.

 After Vietnam, my brothers and two sisters would get together, enjoying vacations, enjoying the beautiful Colorado mountainous scenes. We all enjoyed family reunions during the summer months, traveling to Branson, Missouri enjoying the shows and reminiscence on in our daily lives, since we all lived states away; but never with Mary Venus.

 In 2009, the family found out that my sister Francis had a terminal disease, and after several years of treatments later died. Two years after my other sister Lydia, living in Michigan, found out she had terminal cancer and within four years passed. It left Mary Venus and me, the surviving sisters and the two oldest of the clan. Losing Francis and Lydia emotionally destroyed me, realizing the importance's of life and the critical obligation of taking care of our bodies.

Returning from Guam, John and Mary Venus moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, to be with her two daughters already living there; making it closer to see each other. I seldom heard from her, and we never communicated. There was always the secret of dead silence.

Living in Riverton, Utah was several hours to travel from where I lived. On my first exciting trip to Utah, it surprised me to see my sister happy and hospitable. We were able to communicate: I understood her resentments. Not seeing my sister in so many years was surprising. My sister short in stature reminded me of my mother's loyal trades: of making quilts, cooking, gardening, and doing genealogy. She had an eye for putting colors together for crafts. I had finally found my sister being so kind and generous. From the very beginning of our lives was meant for us to be together. She took me shopping in beautiful Salt Lake City's discount stores and many of the factories where you could buy dry can goods for storage. We also escaped into Wendover, Nevada's Casinos, and had fun. Soon after, she would surprise me by driving and coming to stay with me in Colorado and going to yard sales and different markets; looking for cloth pieces to finish her quilts. 

During the years, the remaining family with nieces and nephews got together and enjoy spending Christmas in Hawaii and viewing the enormous whales out in the ocean. On other occasions, we all have enjoyed during the fall months in Cancun, Mexico, buying their colorful crafts and viewing the ancient Aztec temples.

As time processed, Mary Venus and I became inseparable, all those years of not realizing the wonderful memories we could have had, but faith had made it possible. I did not realize what a beautiful treasure she was; not realizing she was like a hidden pearl along the ocean's edge. As Mary Venus got older and looked like my mother, it comforted me in being with her. She taught me different ways of saving money through canning and freezing, using coupons, and buying cases of can goods to keep us nourished from the winter storms. I realized how truly blessed I was. Getting older and in our golden years, I realized we started in life together from the very beginning and will probably go out together, holding hands the same way.