My father picks up the phone. He is twenty-two years old, and like most Mennonite men living in Durango, Mexico, starts the conversations with “Guten tag!” People have been trying to call all day, my mother mouths at him, in between checking on the beans for dinner and putting my little sister back into her ranshtoll—the now-illegal contraption that looks like a jolly jumper on wheels. In fact, people have been calling for weeks, she silently thinks.
This is the late 90’s. Mennonites in the valley near Nuevo Ideal are warming up to the telephone, modern time-telling luxuries like alarm clocks, and interacting with local Mexican folks. My father runs a business building utility trailers. It’s not long until he has a customer list of local Mexicans. He has one customer that will change everything.
To keep the beans from becoming gassy, my mother throws in a small potato and turns the dial on the chipped gas stove to high heat. No meat for dinner, just beans and sippelfat—sauteed onions and peppers. I can see her from the bathroom. We don’t have a door, just a haphazardly hung towel covering most of the frame. I’m sitting in a silver tin washtub playing with a rubber Bugs Bunny. My older sister is sweeping—the broom towering over her delicate six-year-old frame. We eat dinner late and always after the evening milking. Lately, I’ve been helping with getting the eggs, and I know sooner than later, I’ll have to start helping with more chores.
My mother doesn’t speak Spanish, and she will never learn. The late-night conversations she overhears always start in German and then swiftly, like a storm coming on strong, switch to Spanish. It’s often late before my father comes to bed.
I’m making headway with my memories lately. Little details like the texture of my favourite childhood blanket, caked in dried mud from my morning gander through some puddles, are returning.
This is an exercise in remembering, which I suppose is like writing. Not terribly helpful in healing, but important nonetheless.
If I’m being honest, it’s also an exercise in accepting what I’ve hidden for so long. I was born in Durango, Mexico in a religious Mennonite church settlement. I grew up wearing dresses, going to church, and believing hell was for “English” folks.
It’s hard to accept what you can’t remember. But I’m trying.
One memory comes to me vividly tonight. It was when I went stargazing in the bed of my dad’s pickup truck in the middle of the night.
We were awoken with hushed tones, herded outside, and told to lie on the blanket in the bed of the truck my father had just bought. The stars shone like cat’s eyes. As we sped through the little darp—town, something slid past my feet every time we turned a corner. It was long and slender. A cold barrel.
That’s where the memory stops. All my memories stop in a non-human way.
An object in motion stays in motion, I’ve learned. But not my memories.
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Xo
Maria
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Thank you for sharing this friend. My memories are mostly blacked out too. As hard as it is, I'm so happy you’re digging for them, I want to hear about your life 💚