I want to tell a story here, that is about a huge event in my life. It changed me, and called on me to live my beliefs. It challenged me on every level. It was wonderful, and I am thankful to be a better human being because of one little girl in Mexico. I think some would call this Parenthood, and though this tiny girl is not of my loins, she is definitely of my heart. I fear this is going to be a longish story, and not for the faint of heart. For me, it was a miraculous transformation. I will post some pictures after I write it. 

I first met Alicia when she was in diapers, and she was the littlest sister in La Familia Carrera Castillo. Her oldest sister Saida, was in middle school, and I was sponsoring her school costs. It was early in my days of learning how to be a padrino. I had a lot yet to learn about mentoring Mexican girls. There were two girls in between Saida and Alicia. Tania, of my story, “I Want To Be A Nurse”, and Nalleley, of whom I have not yet written. Their mom and dad were both named Guadalupe, so I sometimes referred to them as Los Dos Lupes. As they came to know me, through my efforts with Saida, and then with Tania too, after a year or two, they opened their home and hearts to me, and called me compadre, which means, co-parent. And they treated me like a co-parent with their girls. It was a very rare opportunity, and I treasured it. I had gained a family.

I took it seriously. I eventually took all 4 of the girls under my wing, and helped them to stay in school for as long as they wanted to go to school. As Saida got to the age of being interested in boys, I gave her the “Sam Talk about sex, and boys, and birth control, and Taking a Hand in Creating Your Own Future”. Those things are inseparable. I was a parent, sort of, and it was Mexico, and not like the US, so when I told Saida it was time to have the Sam Talk, she sat right down to have it with me. And so did the other 3 girls. And mom and dad. The first time, it was very difficult, my Spanish wasn’t very good, but I felt it was important enough at the time, that I girded up my loins, and did my best. I hadn’t expected the audience, especially mom and dad, but I had reached a point of trust with them, that they were there more out of curiosity, than concern. I talked about things in a way that parents often feel uncomfortable with doing themselves. I remember being surrounded by these 4 little girls on the bed, and mom and dad in chairs, and how nervous I felt, but how determined that this information be heard. In colonia Mexico, a girl getting pregnant before she is ready to become a mom, basically ends any opportunities in her future, except that of being a thing that a man (boy) owns. That may seem harsh, but it is true. Like a parent, I wanted them to be able to choose for themselves. Even if they chose to be a mom. They took it well. Occasionally I would see one of the Lupes nodding, out of the corner of my eye. I had the Sam Talk with each one, as they came of age. And the littler sisters always wanted to sit in on them. I got better as the years went by. I took to referring to the local boys as they passed, walking down the railroad tracks in front of the house, as inseminators. And for the most part, that is what they were doing, looking to inseminate a girl. Being a girl in Mexico is a risky business. It is risky here too, but more so in Mexico.

I believe that you should always be honest with kids. And being a Padrino to the girls, there was pretty much nothing I would not tell them or talk about. I don’t have cultural inhibitions, and being an American, I gave the girls useful information in a safe setting where there  was nothing too embarrassing to talk about. The girls trusted me, and had come to know my intentions with them well. I was all about school and the power of education. It was with the Carrera girls that I started saying, “Quien esta la dueña de tu vida?” Who is the owner of your life? They needed to become the owners, and quick, because in a macho culture like Mexico, there were all too many men who would like to have them as a possession.

Eventually Alicia came of age. By then, she had heard the talk 3 times. She was at the age to enter high school. Though she wasn’t showing much interest in boys at the time, she had grown into a beautiful young woman, and I could see the boys’ interest in her when we were in town at the grocery store, or the school uniform store, and the shoe store. I had a very unique relationship with Alicia. She trusted me completely. We talked about everything. When I was up here in Austin, working, we communicated with Whats App messenger almost every day. I never treated her as less than my equal. Never talked down to her. I never said No, or Don’t do that, or You shouldn’t. She got enough of that already, from her culture and family. I always tried to find a way to say things that empowered her. Or helped her to empower herself.

After the Talk, I had been asking her about whether she was planning to go on to high school, and what she wanted to study there.   (it was her choice. I always advocated better education, but she had to want to go, or not. It was her life, she gets to choose) She looked uncomfortable. 

Me: Well, there is CONALEP, (a federally administered trade high school, that taught things like welding, and air conditioning, and secretarial skills.) where your sisters went. And it is nearby.

Alicia: Padrino, I know you work hard for the money to pay for school down here. I don’t want you to be mad, but the University  where Tania is studying Nursing, also offers a high school program. It is a lot more expensive than CONALEP, but it offers a higher level of learning, and that is what I want. I want to go there and study Informatica, and Computers. I don’t think CONALEP can offer me what I need.

Oh great, I thought to myself, Tanias college was keeping me pretty broke already. Her new laptop had set me back financially. Tuition was high. But it was a better school. Tania was getting a great education there. Their high school program was certain to be a better learning situation than CONALEP. So of course, I said ok. Alicia had been a good student in middle school. And she had the drive to succeed at a higher level. So, in one fell swoop, I was going to be paying double tuition. High school at the university was the same price as Nursing school. It made me smile to see that Alicia had taken charge of her education, and had looked into high school  alternatives, and made the decision for herself about what she wanted.

Me: Ok, when does it start? Have you applied for admission?

Alicia: Yes. I applied last month and was accepted. Classes start tuesday, and I need 2500 pesos for admission. Plus tuition for the first semester. I was hoping you would say yes.

Ok, ‘Mr. It Is Your Life, You Get To Decide”, it is time to shit or get off the pot. That was one of the best parts of being a Padrino. It made me want to be the best me that I could be.  I was always conscious that I was representing a completely different way for a man to be, in their eyes. I was nothing like the men in Rio Bravo Mexico. I wanted the girls to see that there are men in the world who do not have to own a woman. Men who can be generous without strings attached. Men who take an interest in them just because they are amazing young women. And that I am interested just because I love them. 

For the next couple years, until Tania graduated from Nursing School, I walked around with dust in my pockets. Every spare dollar I could gather went to Mexico for tuition. Western Union loved me. I juggled money, robbing from Peter to pay Paul, to assure that their tuition was paid. I worked weekends, just so that I could stay abreast of school fees. I had promised each one of the girls that for as long as they wanted to go to school, I would make sure that their school costs were paid, uniforms bought, shoes and books bought. I wanted them to be free to concentrate on learning, and not have to worry about money.

You might be asking, What about their dad? What was he doing while I was paying for his daughters to be educated?

Don Lupe Carrera is a king among men. He and Lupe the mom were great parents. He worked 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, at a local maquilla. His wife ran the family with a firm hand. In his spare time when not working, he built a house out of cement block for them to live in. Block by block, as he could afford them. There was food to be eaten, gas to cook it with, water to drink and wash with, electric to have light and refrigeration and charge computers. His paycheck was about 61 dollars a week. Don Lupe was a loving and patient father. An amazing man who I came to admire a lot. The girls adored him. Best of all, he did not drink. So many of the men that I knew in the colonia lived lives of moving from one drunkenness to another. Their families may not have had food, but the men  always had beer. 

Alicia thrived in high school. She was animated as she told me about the things she was learning. Proud of her accomplishments. I stopped asking to see her grades at the end of the semester like I had in middle school, because they were always good. She was getting a great education because she wanted to. I was so proud of her. When she graduated from high school, I was there with her parents, wearing a tie and feeling like a pig with lipstick like I always do when I dress up.

Me: Well, congratulations Alicia, on your graduation.

Alicia: Thank you Padrino. Thank you for believing in me.

Me: So, what is next? Will you get a job?

Alicia: No, Padrino. I start classes at the University next month. I have enrolled in their psychology program. Tuition has increased, and I will need 3000 pesos to matriculate. Is that ok?

Me: Of course. I gave you my promise. Why Psychology?

Alicia: Because it is interesting. I think I would like to work with counseling of children.

And so it went. She took to Psychology classes like a duck to water. When we would talk, she was so excited about what she was learning. She was totally being the owner of her life. I guess she had been listening. 

In her first year she took a field trip with her class to visit a children’s mental hospital in Matamoros. It had a profound effect on her. It was not an upscale place. There were locked wards where the children were not well cared for. She came back pretty depressed about the conditions, but even more interested in counseling children. And maybe counseling children with disabilities.

In her second year of classes, she sent me a photo of a poster she had seen posted in the school. It advertised a National Psychology Convention, where Psych students, teachers, and Psychologists from all over Mexico could come together for a week of workshops and lectures. She was interested. Would I be able to sponsor her going to attend? Yes I would. As we talked I realized what a great opportunity this would be for her. She had never been far from home. The convention was on the other side of the country, in Puerto Vallarta. To get there, she would have to fly to Mexico City, and then to Puerto Vallarta. She had never flown before, or been away from family for a week, or stayed in a hotel, or seen the Pacific Ocean. Alicia didn’t even have a suitcase. She would be hobnobbing with professional Psychologists. The list of workshops was so interesting that I wanted to go myself. Unexpected things, like The Counseling of Transgender Kids, and Counseling Women About Family Violence. Working with Drug Addicted Children. I was almost as excited as she was. She went and had a terrific week. It really fired her up about her chosen field of study.

Shortly after she got back from the convention, her mom died. Lupe had been suffering from advanced diabetes for some time, and had been doing home dialysis. The family was cast adrift without her strong guidance. Especially Alicia. Don Lupe was working 12 hours a day. Saida had long since moved out and had found herself an inseminator, and was busy living the dream in McAllen, Texas, and starting her own family. Tania was working long days at the hospital. Nalleley was living with her own inseminator, poorly chosen, and in my opinion, the worst sort of jerkass possible. I wanted to go over to their house and punch him, like he was punching Nalleley. That left Alicia alone in the house when she came home after classes at the university. Alone to sit and think and cry about missing her mom. There was no one to console her in her grief. Or so I thought. Our communication fell off. Sometimes several days would go by without hearing from her. Her communication, when she messaged me, was dull, and full of her grief. My heart went out to her, but being 350 miles away in a different country, there was little for me to do but remain constant, and pour out my love for her when she would message me. 

I started noticing that she seemed to be a lot less forthcoming in her communication with me. There seemed to be things that she was… well, if not avoiding telling me, certainly unwilling to talk about. That was so out of character. We had always been completely honest with each other, ever since she was a little girl, Alicia because she was just an honest little girl who had not yet been exposed to lies, and me because I have learned that that is the way that I can live in this world peacefully. A couple weeks went by without hearing from her. I was very worried. Then one day in a message, she told me that there was a boy, a friend, who had been coming by the house, and sitting with her in the afternoons, after classes, and helping her with her sadness. I felt some relief, knowing that she was not completely alone in those hours of darkness. I hoped that he was different from the other boys that I knew in the colonia. But her messages were conspicuous in their lack of depth. I started thinking that she was not being completely honest with me. She mentioned that she was thinking of making Sebastian, the boy, her boyfriend. It made sense on a practical level. She was deep in sorrow, and here was this boy who was there for her in her time of need, but as days passed, I started suspecting that in fact, she had already made him her boyfriend. And why not? It made sense that she could fall in love with the boy who was holding her, and showing her that she was not alone with her sorrow. Well, maybe in a perfect world there is a boy like that.

As it turned out, she had made him her boyfriend, and had moved him into the house with her, and was sexually active with him. This came out because she was slowly over a week or so of messages, letting me in on the details. She told me because that was how we were with each other, always honest. Of course I asked her about birth control. She knew how I felt about boys, and how I always said that there would be time for boyfriends after she graduated from the university. 

There are two words for marriage in Spanish. Casada, and matrimonio. Matrimonio was having the whole wedding thing, with the big white dress, in the church, and a big celebration with the family. Casada is the past tense of casa, and means “housed”. Or living together. That was the only type of marriage available to the poor families in the colonia. Nobody much ever had the money for matrimony. So, a girl would usually run away from her family, and the next thing you knew, she was living with the boy, usually in his family’s house, and soon she would become pregnant. And would talk about “mi esposo”, my husband. I greatly feared this would become the case with Alicia. She only had one more year at the university, and I worried that she would stop going to classes, or  become pregnant, and that would be the end of her autonomy and career, and any opportunities that her years of studying had to offer her. It shook me to the core. The partnership that she and I shared in advancing her education had seemed to be coming to an end. 

I had seen it time and time again. Some of the smartest girls that I had mentored, girls with amazing potential, and I had given them  my best, had gone down this road. In particular, a girl named Rubi, probably the most intelligent girl that I knew in the colonia, was now the mother of 3 kids, pregnant with the 4th, and was living in squalor, in a cardboard shack, with a husband who was not well employed most of the time. Rubi had been the captain of her school’s girls soccer team, a straight A student, and she had a broken down old horse with which she won competitions in dressage, and the top of her dresser was full of trophies. To look at this horse, you would never think it possible. But I went to see her compete. Atop this old lanky horse, in the fancy vestido that her mom, a seamstress, had made for her, she would make the horse dance like a champion. 
When she first got pregnant, at the beginning of her last year of high school, I tried to keep her focused on what was important, getting at minimum, her high school diploma. I talked with her mom about caring for the baby while Rubi was at school finishing her studies. I offered to buy a breast pump, so that her mom would have the milk to feed the baby while she was in school. And ever since I had taken her on as an ahijada (god daughter), and started paying for her schooling, she had told me that her dream was to graduate, and go to college, and study engineering. She would light up like fire when she spoke about it.  And I had no doubt that she could do that. And would be very successful at it. But hormones, and the desire to have something of her own, a husband, for the social status it would give her among her peers, took precedence. And she quit high school.

 I cried when she told me she was quitting school. I, too, had dreamed of her future with her. I started questioning if I was just a fool, throwing his money away in pursuit of something impossible, and the things that I believed in, were just smoke. I looked back down the years, at the 15 or so girls that I had tried to help have a better life, and had lost to boys and pregnancy, and I felt like a failure. And now, here was Alicia, heading down the same road.

It made our communication difficult. I had not met the boy. Sebastian seemed to be a good boy, from what Alicia said, and I trusted that she had thought about it. She was educated, semi worldly, in comparison to her peers in her school, and had me in her life for years. She was an independent girl who didn’t make hasty decisions. And I was grateful to him for being there when she was foundering in her grief. But I worried that this was the beginning of the end. 

And so it came to pass. One day she told me that she was pregnant. It was not planned. They had been using condoms, and she was not ready to become a mom. But there it was. Just one time of unprotected sex, and wham, pregnant. I was furious. I don’t believe in accidental pregnancy. There is too much information available about birth control and pregnancy. We had talked about this a lot. It is a conscious decision to have unprotected sex, and run the risk. I asked her what she thought about abortion. She said that she didn’t know much about it.

I called an abortion clinic in Mc Allen, just across the border from where Alicia lives. The woman I spoke with was so great. I told her my story, and she told me what they could do. If she came in soon, they would give her the abortion pill, keep her for a day or two, and then she could go home. It was expensive, but I would pay it, if for no other reason, than just to give her the option. I have no issues with abortion. It has always been something that I felt women should be able to decide for themselves. I am from the 70’s. I have believed in a woman’s right to choose ever since. I have no agenda like the right to lifers, who are basically against freedom of choice. Unless you choose the way that they think you should choose. I am against zealotry in any form. The world is not black and white. The shades of gray are our best feature.

I got back to Alicia, and presented what I had found out to her. I put nothing in it, but the information, and in a way that she could consider it if she chose to. She asked me what I thought about it, and I told her that it was something available to her, and I had never told her what she should do about anything, and I wasn’t going to start doing that now. I would love her the same, no matter what she chose to do. I encouraged her to take the information and discuss it with Sebastian.

In the end, she decided to have the baby. It called into reality all the fears that I had ever had about my silly idea that I could help make changes in the lives of others for the better. The baby was due right after her graduation. She stayed in school. I found myself paralyzed in what to talk with her about, so big was the elephant in the room. I tried to imagine how this could work out for her, but I was unable to.

I was so confused about my own beliefs, that I stopped returning her messages.
It was a dark time for me. I questioned everything. I went to work and came home. And I thought. I thought so hard that my brain hurt. I racked my brains, trying to think of just where I had failed, what I could have done to prevent this. I drifted along in misery for months. But in the end of my torturing myself about my failure, I always came back to “quien esta la dueña de tu vida?” That not only implies making good decisions for yourself, but it also means leaving a girl free to make her own decisions. And I loved this girl deeply, and had for years. Loving someone means accepting them for who they are, and supporting them in what they choose to do with their life. It was hard. Sometimes when your heart and your mind are in conflict, it causes great cognitive dissonance. But after years of teaching girls to take ownership of their life, I too, had internalized that, yes, I am the owner of my life. And stewing in my self pity was not being a very good owner. Sometimes you teach the very thing that you yourself need to learn.
I put on my big girl panties, and reached out to Alicia, to see if there was a way we could get back to what we were. She was reluctant. She had been deeply hurt by my stopping communication. I didn’t blame her. I had abandoned her in a time of need, and she felt cast adrift. Our communication was stilted and awkward. I feared that I had ruined one of the very best things in my life, our friendship.

In the interim, she and Sebastian had been living together, he working as a truck driver, and she was at home taking care of the new baby. Even through the time of our not communicating, I had continued to send tuition money, and she had graduated from college, and got her degree in Psychology. But caring for the new baby had pretty much ended her being able to work in her field of study. 

She had tried, and had gotten a job in a maquilla, working nights in the Human Resources Department, while Sebastian was working days driving a truck. But the logistics of it were not working. He worked 12 hours a day, and she worked 12 hours every night, and the times of overlap for child care were unworkable. His mom could care for the baby between Alicia coming home, and Sebastian going to work, but she lived way out in the campo, and Tania could care for the baby in the night until Sebastian came home and Alicia went to work. But it wasn’t working. She was tired all day caring for the baby. He was angry having to take care of the baby when he thought he should be sleeping. It caused a rift in their relationship. 

Sebastian was reluctant to talk about it. He wanted her to quit the job, and she did after a month of wrestling with everything. In a rare moment, she asked me what to do. I asked her how much she made, and how much Sebastian made at work. His salary was 200 pesos a week more than hers. Strictly economically, she should quit her job if they were going back to a one salary family. Eventually, his resistance to try and find a solution caused her to ask him to move out. There were other things, but mostly she seemed frustrated by his unwillingness to discuss things. 

And he did move out, taking his insurance from the job with him, and refusing to give her any money for diapers and baby formula. 
As this came to pass, Alicia was suffering some kind of illness. She would vomit, and have cramps, and headaches, and her bladder would not empty. After months of her suffering, while trying to get an appointment with a doctor who could find out what was going on, she finally was able to, and she had major gallstones, that were blocking her urethra. She needed gall bladder surgery. Finding a surgeon to do it, took another month of her constant suffering. She was dying, or at least it seemed like that to me. I sent her the money for her surgery to supplement what Don Lupe and Tania could get together. In Mexico, you have to pay upfront for surgery.She was finally operated on, saving her life. She sent me a picture of the pile of gravel that was in her removed gall bladder. Ick.
Life got back to normal for her, and because of her amazing sensitivity and patience, we got back to normal too. We are communicating every day or two. I am happy to be friends again. The cost of this friendship is that I can not let her starve or live a tragic life. I subsidize her life in simple ways. I send money regularly, for diapers and food, and doctor visits for her baby, 

Luis. Who I have called La Garrapata ever since he was born. And for doctor visits by her.  I am not really happy about this, especially because her inseminator has not been helping much. But I can’t turn my back on her. We have a long history together. I love her deeply. She can still succeed in her career. It will just have to wait a while, until the baby is older. If she wants that for herself. I keep thinking positive about it. She is Maria Alicia Chiquita Carrera Castillo. There is nothing that she can not do. As I have told her  hundreds of times over the years.

Lately, she has been talking to Sebastian about trying again. She loves the guy. But he has to be able to talk about things with her, and show her that he is willing to take care of her. Or no dice. She is very firm about that. He is laying the footers for a house in the back yard, working with Don Lupe, to build them a house. They are talking some.

The other day she asked me what I thought about that. I told her that my best advice is to use birth control, because she doesn’t need another baby. Sometimes I have a one track mind. She agreed, and that digressed into a discussion of hysterectomies versus vasectomies, and how she did not want to get the implant because of the side effects, nor a hysterectomy because of the hormonal imbalances. I had a vasectomy years ago, and told her about how it was. I am sure that will become part of their discussions. She is talking in a manner that makes me wonder if she is saying that she does not want to have any more children. I am sure she will tell me if that is the case. Right now, it is Sebastian’s time to shit or get off the pot. If he doesn’t do what he needs to do, he will be losing a once in a lifetime chance to have an absolutely wonderful woman in his life. She will be able to teach him how to be a man, just like Jenny did for me. A good man needs a strong woman in his life, to help him achieve greatness.

As for me, like always, I have accepted what life has handed me. I am doing my best to be true to myself, and live a life that supports my beliefs for me. I am the owner of my life. I get to decide what I will do when life hands me something difficult. Like cancer. For now, I have decided to try to help her stay free to decide for herself. Whatever that takes. I have never been a parent. But isn’t this what parenthood is all about?

Freedom to choose matters.   <3