Hail storm hits Guadalajara, Mexico

There wasn’t a whole lot mentioned on google or on the news regarding this hail storm that hit Guadalajara on July 1,2019.

Funny thing is when Jorge told me about this freaky event, I couldn’t find a single article on the internet using Google. But once I changed my Internet browsers from Google to DuckDuckGo yesterday, then all these news articles started popping up.

And since I am behind on my blog post “My brother Jorge and I” I figured I’d share the pictures he had sent me on July, 1.

I also added a news link from NBC News.

Guadalajara seriously got buried in over three feet of ice.

This may seem like a freak incident, but from what I’ve read is not all that uncommon in various parts of the world this time of year.

What do you think about this strange occurrence from Mother Nature?

Hail Storm hits Guadalajara.

My brother Jorge and I, our story….. (cont)

My first memory of having an older brother was when I was around six. Mom had several black and white photos of a little boy wearing a tuxedo standing next to a large birthday cake. Another was Jorge on a pony wearing a cowboy outfit and hat and another of him as a toddler wearing all white. Mom kept those photo on the credenza in full view. They were never kept hidden. She never talked about home or even cooked authentic Mexican food, I believe it was just too painful for her and my dad. I can recall laying in my bed and hearing her crying to my dad but not understanding why she was so upset. For as long as I can remember my dad wanted a son, what he got three daughters. My dad had worked for many years overseas on an oil field in Saudi Arabia when we were just toddlers. Dad was making really good money and not just for us, but for my mom to be able to go back to Mexico and get our brother.

When I finally got to meet my brother was during the holiday season in 1975. This past year was a difficult time for all of us as a family, as my Aunt Donna, my dad’s younger sister had passed away from lung cancer in May and then my grandfather Riley suddenly died a few months later. My Aunt Donna was my favorite Aunt. She spent a lot of time with us as children taking us places like the park, and The Pike in Long Beach, and she was always hanging out at Grandpa’s house, which was were we spent a lot of our time at. My grandpa taught me how to defend myself and fight when I was nine and I’d help Grandpa out in the garage with cutting rocks. It was a nice trade off as Grandpa would share the Tv and his favorite chair whenever we visited, unless boxing was on which was a lot. My dad was very close to both. It was especially a sad time for my dad. Aunt Donna was forty-one and grandpa was sixty-seven.

It wasn’t until recently that I learned the occasion for my brothers visit to America with Grandma and Grandpa. My Grandpa Gumercindo had sold his business for a good profit and bought my brother who’s now 16 a brand new Ford Mustang V8 and a trip to see his mom and meet his sisters.

They were in California for a week or so staying at my godmothers place in downtown Los Angeles, when my mom got the phone call from her parents that they flew out sooner then what was originally planned. Mom was upset to find out her son was here and that she wasn’t told sooner. Now where we lived in Inglewood was a hop, skip and a jump from Downtown LA. Mom was hurt at the lost time with her son.

To be continued

My Brother Jorge and I. Our story…

I have a half brother that I’ve met only once in 1975 when I was ten years old. But I’ve always loved him from the moment we met. Its been over forty years since I’ve had any contact with my brother until October 25th, 2019 when I found him on Facebook.

Well perhaps I should start at the beginning, as this is a really long story to share.

I should start with mom. Our mom was born in 1937 in Guadalajara, Mexico. Now growing up mom was a very private person and she didn’t speak much of her home country or older brother. Over the course of time I came to realize that this was not only a very sensitive subject for our mom to speak about, but also very painful for her.

My mom was twenty years old when she gave birth to my brother Jorge on September 26, 1957 her husband was not by her side as he had been killed in an auto accident four months before my brother was born. Widowed with a newborn son, I can’t begin to imagine what an awful ordeal this had been for my mom and at such a young age of twenty to be widowed with a baby. My mom with her baby boy moved in back in with her parents, as she settled in to a new life as a single mom in an female alpha dominant home. If you never heard before growing up in a Latina home, the wife is typically the one who rules the home and is very strict, old school, old country, old culture. There is no room for bend or compromise. An iron fist and “my way” is how it is. Period.

I am not certain of the exact dates but It was approximately three to four years after my brother was born when my mom had researched, applied and obtained a position as a live-in nanny here in the US.

My mom wanted to come to America to make a better life for my brother and herself, but first she would need to leave Jorge temporarily with her parents while she made the journey to America. Mom would need to establish herself first, so that she could bring my brother here at a later time.

Being a single parent myself I can relate to always wanting to be a good provider and parent to my kids, but I can’t begin to imagine what fears she may have had about leaving her young son behind to relocate to another country, not knowing a single word of english. Or how scared and worried my brother must have felt with mom leaving him behind and how he waited for her to return to him. Before leaving for America my grandmother Susanna had my mom sign documents of consent to give legal guardianship to my grandparents in her absence and those exact documents would come back to haunt our mom later on. The year she came to the US was in the fall 1962. Our mom flew from Mexico and landed in Des Moines, Iowa and was employed as a live in nanny for a prominet family with one or two little girls, no boys. I would later find out that mom purposedly avoided gaining employment in homes with boys similar in age to Jorge. Every week when mom got paid she sent money to her parents back home to help with Jorge’s care and expenses. She started out as a housekeeper and nanny and within a year she was employed as a nurses aid at broad lawn Polk County Hospital and met my dad Tom who worked there as an orderly.

More to come…..