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I found out I was pregnant on my Abuela's 89th birthday.
The first thing I did after telling my husband was call my mom back in Montreal, thinking I wanted to congratulate my grandma, she put me on speaker phone. I said "I just took a home test, I'm pregnant!". Everybody cheered, I was crying, my mother was going to have her first grandchild and my Abuela her first great-grandchild.
We spoke on the phone for a while, my uncle was also visiting from Miami, my brother came out of his room when he heard the yelling. I was alone at home, waiting for my husband to come from his night shift at the hospital. Abuela was participating in the conversation.
And then my mother mentioned something on the lines of "but now that you are pregnant..." and Abuela interrupted asking "Who?".
She did not remember or maybe never really recognized who was the person over the phone. Or what we had been talking about for the past five minutes.
She had been officially diagnosed with dementia (or Alzheimer's - something within that spectrum) a couple of months ago.
Nelly Beatriz Antonia Blanco de Méndez (Abuela) was born in San Carlos del Zulia, Venezuela, on November 12th 1930. Her mother died during labour due to preeclampsia complications, or back in the time, lack of knowledge for treatment. She was raised by her father, the town's pharmacist, and her aunt "Mamacita Carmen".
She grew up between San Carlos and Santa Barbara, two small towns divided by the Escalante River. Her house was right in front of the river. She used to tell me that whenever it rained, the river would grow and flood her house. Santa Barbara was known for its vast and rich land, perfect for cattle and plantain crops. Many families made their fortune from those lands, providing the state and the rest of the country with the best beef, milk and cheese products for generations. Among them, the family of Hernan Alfonso Méndez Rincón (Abuelo).
They fell in love in Santa Barbara, and after years of courtship, in which my grandfather was forced to pursue a university career (because my Abuela was not going to live with someone that had no future) they married* and moved to Maracaibo, the big city. They had four children, Mariela (my mom), Hernan, Maria Gabriela and Carlos Eduardo.
Abuelo passed away when he was only 60 years old, of lupus complications. I was born 4 months later, the first grandchild of the Méndez Blanco family.
Abuela passed away on January 14th 2020, as I was half way through writing this post. The first great-grandchild of the Méndez Blanco family will be born this July.
Family history has a funny way of repeating itself.
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| Coming soon. |
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| The Méndez Blanco family in my baptism. I still remember that striped dress Abuela kept using for many years after that. |
Spotify plays: Canzone per l'estate - Frabrizio De André
AnaPé says: * Last year, during a casual conversation with Abuela, I found out that she first married in civil union, then Abuelo went to university and they waited until he graduated four years later to do a church ceremony. I happened to have done the exact same thing with my husband, a civil union in 2014 and the catholic ceremony in 2018. I was completely unaware of my grandma's marriage story. Maybe that article was right.
