Tribute to Marina Santana Garza

hi mom how is the great world of heaven. Been doing something I think you would be proud of me. I am doing private care for a Lady who is eighty-six years old that had a Massive Stroke. She is very intellingent (i know i mis spell the word prior to this but the spell check stated no mis spell word go figure) and reminds me of you, she sews all her children clothes and or shall i say did. Loves flowers, and I do not know but she makes me think of you. She lost her left stroke from this but it seems to be coming back very slowly.

Mom I miss you and hope you are listening when I talk to you in my head and my heart.

Leticia and are speaking I know this makes you happy as you are looking down on us. Please show me some sign that you hear me when I talk to your picture that sits on my dresser.

I have not found a job belive or not I am so over qualified guess they think I am more money than they can pay me. But I get paid pretty good for taking care of Mrs. Black and you know I enjoy doing that. But this job is under the table so kinda of missing out on my social security.

Have not talk with my brother in a while but guess we are all busy with our family. Stranage how family gets to busy to pick the phone up just to say hello. I am suppose to call him when I got on the web to let him know that I got on. But since he is the master of your web page he will know.

It is late and I did work hard this past weekend put in sixty four hours, have not been at home the whole time so I am going to sleep,. Miss you mom sometimes I wish I never told you to go if you where that tired. I wish I would told you to fight and stay here with us but seems to me that would be selfish to do so. I hope you are dancing and growing the biggest roses than ever before. I do know you are no longer in pain physical and mentally life was hell for you down here.

Good nite mom please show me you are still with me, i miss you even with are differences.

Its been five years, in those five years your daughters were not speaking. As of today we are speaking and loving one another. When I left Texas you asked me to come and check on my baby sister, before you went into the lord’s hands we had our differences and then when you left we all felt ?.

But I a happy to say that we are now sisters again. she really misses you, I told her that I am here for her no matter what and as I promised you I will never turn her  away. It took some time but I know you are looking down and smiling as we had lunch today. I gave her the pink tree that came from grandma Santana (knowing that they are looking down at us today). There was a little green pouch that you carried with a small rosery in it I have used it and it help me with alot of my decisions that I had to make in the last five years. I prayed on it last night and felt you came to me in my sleep and told me it is her turn for now she is in need of it. So now it is in her life and household.

Just wanted to let you know that I will continue to look over her either close as we were today or from a distances. Which in the past five years it was from a distances but from this day foward it will be up close.

Mom thanks for your thoughts in my dreams last night. Please let her know that you are still with her and alway will be if you can come to her tonight so she knows you are near and that you have not and never will leave her.

I remember you asking me just be a sister to her and explain to me that we are two different people  but yet sisters.

I love you MOM and tell grandma and grandpa Santana and grandpa Garza, and if you see Raymond and Cyristal I missed them and love them. Hold them tight for me. Not sure when my time is coming but I know we I see you again you will be holding my children and waiting on me to come meet with you’ll.

Hey mom,  thanks.  You know what I am talking about. Are you still looking for something? We know. I have tried my best to talk to the other ones. But it seems it is their way or the highway.  They think I am being selfish. They also can’t seem to forgive themselves. I know you have . I can try again but I don’t think it  is a good idea right now. They still think I abandon my children. Ironic as it is some people need to look in them selves and see what the have really done in their own past. Yes, MOM, your other daughter is still holds a lot of things against me. I have moved own. I wish she could be a sister but she hates me so much that I don’t think she realizes what a sister I could be to her. She made a few ugly stories up and now she really hates me.  You know the Santa Claus on the bike that you told me about before you left . She Claims it for her husband that calls her m.f. I know you bought that for Mark . I know a lot of things that you shared with me but they meaning your son and other daughter  don’t have a clue on what I am talking about I love you mom I hope to see you soon. I fell my time is near

love always

leticia

I know you loved me, but just had a hard time showing it. You left me alone and then I taught myself to do things. I am sorry for my mistakes and I know you know that. It was hard to understand why everyone thought the things they thought. All though I was only 15, no one not even you thought it was wrong that a 20 year old was ruining my life. It saddens me to know that you are gone, but yet I still feel your presences. One day I will get to see you, grandfather, and grandmother  that I will be the day when all is in peace. I love you mom and I miss you everyday. As my eyes feel up with tears I feel you put your hand on my shoulder, and remember how you use to sing ,” You and me against the world sometimes it fell like, you and me against the world”

love and peace forever. Your baby daughter

I have moved on . I keep looking for you, but your not there. I felt your presents yesterday and wondered why you left. I saw a light in the dark and wondered is that you? I know not to be scared when you are not there. How ever I miss you. I was the one who stayed in the bad times and good and I know you know  that it hurts to see what has happen to me. When it is time to look for you I will see you and be glad that it was all just a way to pass the time. It has been five years since you’ve been gone, and things are just the same. Your other children still hate me . I know you and god have forgave me for all my mistakes and I have forgave myself. I guess that is good. I love you mom I know you love me too. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxooxoxo

leticia

Well, Mom I was just talking to you the

other day, Thank you I needed someone

to listen. As I spoke to you remember I

For so many years I have kept things inside of me but since I have created this site and this is about My Mother and her life as well as my own. I will indulge.

It was often very  hard for my Mother to be one to me and my sisters. I know that as a young woman she helped to raise my Aunts and Uncles, since she was the oldest Daughter. Life for my mother was not easy, and often she would lose herself in sewing and other things that would take her away from my sisters and me. I know she was a bright woman and often I wonder why she had given up so much  of her life for others. I realize Mom and Dad were from another generation and Hispanic with cultural norms that were not too different from the Older Traditional ways. It must have been hard for her to live in a world that was changing so fast and to see what she had become knowing what she could have been. At times I wondered if my Mother suffered from some type of psychosis, but now, far from the center of the storm that was our lives, I see she was simply a victim of her own frustration and we became victims with her. After my parents separated it was hard for me, as old habits die hard and my Mother turned to me for the battles she often had with my Father. SO I did what was the only thing I could do, I left. Survival is a harsh mistress and if you choose her, many will scorn you, and so it was for me. As the years went by my Mother’s loneliness grew and she turned to the only person who she felt safe with, my Grandmother, and for years my Mother felt the brunt of so much judgement and scorn from her own family.

I remember as a child, while we were still living in the middle of the eye of the hurricane that was our lives, I would often catch bits of conversation from my Aunts and Uncles with my Grandfather about my Mother and Father, as I was often at my Grandparents house due to my parents inability to cope with their hate for each other. Often my Grandfather would shush  my relatives from speaking wrongly of my mother in front of me.

As I grew to manhood I did not forget those moments of scorn I observed and so, I distanced my self from the Family. Anger is hard to lose but I did and as I did I finally realized I had to confront my Mother with the truth of our tumultuous lives as children. She was of course in great denial about the past and it was hard for her to hear me when I corrected her statement that my sisters and I  had had a good life as children. “Our life was hell” I said to her, and it had been, I was in my 30’s when we had that conversation. As the years went by my mother forgave my forwardness and soon it was forgotten, then one day My Grandmother passed, and my Mother fell apart, the only true friend in her life was gone and slowly but surely my Mother sank in to her dementia and second childhood. Her voice changed and she no longer had that strong sound but the sound of a child that was lost. As the years passed I would call her and each time she would burst in to tears and inform me that she missed my Grandmother and I would always tell her she needed to let go and get on with her life. But…she never did, instead she continued to bear the burden of others and their lives, casting her own life to the side as she had always done, and in so doing sealed her fate forever as a martyr. My Mother died in a coma, one that I wished had waited till I could speak to her before she left us, to no avail. I pray for her each day and hope that there is some justice in the here after for people like my Mother. People who give up everything at the expense of their happiness, fulfillment and peace of mind. I look at the pictures of my mother in the last years of her life , and I see my self, a soul wondering if I truly belong here, wondering “Where do I belong?” Then I realize I have been more fortunate than most when I look back and see the things I have accomplished and the People I have touched, all because my Mother gave up so much.

My Mother and I had our differences. As I stayed by here death bed, I saw a parade of people, some I knew others I didn’t. People who loved my Mother and came to pay thier last respects. I couldn’t talk to my Mother when I got to her because she had slipped in to a  coma. I realized at the end that she tried so hard to be loved and to love. Thank you Mom for the greatest lesson I have ever learned for as I watched the woman who gave me life pass from this world you once again gave me life.