Celebrating Accomplished and Substantive Lives More Than a Month at a Time
The author with Pacito, Mama, and Mama Reyes (l. to r.)
A thought flutters into your mind… and you would swear it is a memory. But you can’t recall having lived it.
Sometimes I summon up a recollection about my paternal grandmother, christened Reyes, called Mama Reyes by me… but I cannot quite bring the scene into focus though. Then I remember it was only a story, an anecdote shared by one of my parents.
Mama Reyes died when I was eleven, so my memories of her consist not of years, but of life lessons.
At the end of the 19th century, it was not uncommon for women to marry early. In fact, as I was told, in the case of Mama Reyes, she was encouraged by her mother (a la Jane Austen’s Mrs. Bennett) to marry this “older man with money.” He would provide much-needed security, according to her mother. So, Reyes did. And the man did not.
