Giving thanks everyday

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Another Sunday has come and gone and family gathers for Sunday lunch once again.  Aunts, uncles and cousins travel from other cities to have lunch together and to do grocery shopping for the week.  Although my aunts and their families live in the main city they come to Ojo for all their fresh fruit and vegetables and the occasional family favorite treat they can’t find in the city.  I am intrigued at the family dynamics I have missed over the past 23 years.

Watching everyone gather around the table for a meal together reminds me of my own family and the traditions we have learned to adapt to over the years in a foreign country.  My aunts listen as I describe what Easter and Thanksgiving are like, holidays not shared by Mexico.  When people immigrate to foreign lands in search of a better life there is so much they leave behind.  They leave behind, family, friends and traditions.  Here the pace of living is calming and no one is high strung to get to the top.  Traditions as well as holidays are honored and respected, rather than commercialized and high strung.  I tell them the purpose of Thanksgiving and explain to them that it is a time to be together with family and give thanks.  They ask “shouldn’t you always be with family and give thanks everyday?”  I don’t know how to answer.  I think long and hard and wonder if it’s hard for me to be thankful everyday when I am reminded that I am worthless and a criminal every day I wake up in the U.S.  Although here I not feeling very worthy either.  As someone who has abandoned their country I am not looked at very favorably.