---------- Mom's senior year in High School ----------
It was the story, we always heard.
She grew up in Monterrey, helped run a small neighborhood market with her grandmother, and celebrated her Quinceañera
, without her mother., who by that time, had become an absent figure, in her young life.
Then finally, her mother Christina sent for her, to live with her, and husband, Walter Bade (and daughter Louisa) in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1955, when she was 17 years old. That's where she attended Central High, and married her high school sweetheart, Paul. After graduation, she went on to Art School in Chicago, while Paul joined the Marines.
Her all time favorite movie was "Grease", because she said that high school at Fort Wayne, "was exactly, like that movie". When Don McLean's epic song "American Pie" came out, she waited by the radio, to hear it again and again. One day, she explained the whole song to us, and what it meant.
From Chicago, to
Camp Lejeune, (where Maria and I were born). Then New Orleans (where Michelle was born), then Houston (with stops in between, to visit our grandparents in the Kentucky mountains). And finally ending up with her mother again at Los Angeles, we stopped moving, and settled down into sunny Southern California, by the fall of 1972.
"You can't go home again", she began saying, after she returned to Monterrey in 1975 to settle her mother's estate. Traveling across the country, I swear we heard the song "Eres tú", every hour, on the hour, on the car radio. We finally gave in, and sang that song, the rest of the way there. The minute we crossed the border at Laredo, we began seeing a lot of these fun-looking, open-air vehicles zipping around us on the highway. They were called, "the Thing". It was a convertible Volkswagen jeep, and mom surmised, that the factory for those cars, must be nearby. Always the wisecracker, I said, "Yes mom, that car is made in Mexico, and so are you". We all had a good laugh.
We arrived late into downtown Monterrey, and starving to death. But this was mom's hometown, and before long, one of those restaurants opened up, and we were eating the best chicken tostadas with the best mexican sour cream I ever had. It was incredible. Midnight... and the restaurant opened, just for us. It was like a scene out of Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks"... except infinitely more exciting, and welcoming.
In the morning, mom saw that the city had changed so much, Her childhood home was replaced by a high-rise. However, we did happen to catch a traveling circus passing through her old neighborhood. They began raising their tents, while we were there. It was as if they were celebrating her return. Thor even started buying the admission for anyone, who couldn't afford it.
My God, there must have been 10,000 people, in attendance. We soon discovered, after about four acts, of "Aqui presentando Alejandro, throwing knives, ... y ... Acá presentando Alejandro, taming the tigers", ... that it was practically a one-man circus. It was such a hoot. We had the best time, ever. Thor drove us back home to California, with some cajeta (Mexican caramel mom couldn't find anywhere else), and she never went back to Mexico again.
She continued raising us, and caring for us, even as Maria left for the army, and Texas. Even as Michelle broke out on her own, with a successful fashion shop and family. Even as Mando and I left her Magnolia Apartments, finally cutting "the apron strings"--- God knows I did not want to. I would have preferred to stay by her side, as her dutiful son, until the day I die.
But the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and sadly, the Lord called her home, on December 15th, 2018.
I love you, mom. We love you. We always will. XOXO XOXO XOXO
Paul Maria Michelle
(Paul Allen Cook II, and all family members). March 17th, 2019
