Today, I am editing my parents’ love story: Please enjoy and share your thoughts,
Chapter 6: Arnulfo and Manuela’s Love Story
As Sadie begins her day, she gazes at the drafting board and is excited to know that today, she will begin drafting Chapter 6. She has now become an even greater part of the story as she prepares to go out for an early morning run.
Sweat trickles down her spine and legs, and she is free to be herself again. Sadie has not been able to run as freely as she likes because of the allergies she experiences. She is taking her shots and taking care of her body, yet the allergens are around. Living in deep South Texas is not easy on her body. Her legs feel strong, and her heart sings ever so wildly. She listens to Coldplay and Billie Eilish and smiles as she is reminded of the closed doors and the giant acorns about to burst forth.
Still, her mind is perplexed. Today is Mother’s Day. She feels peace in her heart, yet she misses her mother. She remembers those times cooking together, laughing, bonding times when it was just her and her talking or sharing a meal. Her mother ate her meals with so much gusto, she remembers. She still envisions her mother reading her precious Daily Word.
How peaceful she looked back then, Sadie thinks, picturing the sun’s rays brightening her mother’s silhouette. She always sat in her favorite chair by that window in the television room. She can’t help but to feel melancholic as she remembers that time when her mother shared how her father had come up to her that special day by the riverbed.
She was washing clothes that afternoon by the Rio Bravo, and he just happened to be galloping by on his favorite horse, “La Paloma.” He brought La Paloma to a halt, rode up to her, and smiled cockily. “Un dia me voy a casar contigo!”
Wow, how romantic my father was, she smiles as she wipes sweat from her brow. He dared to tell her he would marry her one day.
The run is helping her feel closer to that indwelling spirit whenever she is out in nature. Is it because nature is God and God is nature? Could it be because our ancestors lived mostly out in nature? They didn’t have tall skyscraper apartments to live in. Nor did they have air-conditioned homes or cars to get by. They rode horses and buggies, and they walked for miles on end. Could it be because sitting by a lake or an ocean takes us back to our evolutionary origins as perhaps a tadpole?
***
It is June 16, 1920 and Paula Alaniz and Argimiro are ecstatic today as the day has come for the birth of their twins. Matamoritos is ablaze with word that “Chatita” is giving birth and only the women are allowed to congregate at their home as was the custom then. Women scurry nervously outside the house as the midwife, Carmelita suddenly runs outside calling for the town’s doctor.
“Donde esta el Dr. Palacios,” she hollers frantically. “El cuate hombrecito no llora y tiene un color horrible. Por favor corran a buscar al doctor!”
A young boy about 8 years old comes running to Carmelita with the news that he saw the doctor leave late last night to Cd. Mier on an emergency call, but that his mother could help. Frantically, he runs to his home, calling out for his mother Adela who was a seasoned midwife and knew of herbal remedies to stop hemorrages.
Unfortunatlely, Chatita’s umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby boy’s neck and he didn’t survive. Fortunately, the baby girl lived.
That baby twin girl was Manuela, Sadie’s mother. That boy running to the rescue was Arnulfo, Sadie’s father.
Years later, Arnulfo would ask one of his aunts to help him pen a love letter asking Manuela, 16 years old, to be his girlfriend.
On January 1, 1938 after a 2-year courtship, Arnulfo recited to his bride, “You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners. Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me—Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead.” (Song of Solomon, give proper credit Maida)
They would remain together for 70 years before God called Arnulfo to heaven and then his bride 2 years later, leaving behind a legacy of love, devotion, and unscripted harmony.
***
So, how can Manuela be described? “Mema,” as her father, Papa Kiko lovingly called her. Sadie knows that her own biased description will not give her mother justice; therefore she opens up her Bible and reads from Proverbs 31:
The Woman Who Fears the Lord
10 [An excellent wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.
11 The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.
12 She does him good, and not harm,
all the days of her life.
13 She seeks wool and flax,
and works with willing hands.
14 She is like the ships of the merchant;
she brings her food from afar.
15 She rises while it is yet night
and provides food for her household
and portions for her maidens.
16 She considers a field and buys it;
with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
17 She dresses herself[with strength
and makes her arms strong.
18 She perceives that her merchandise is profitable.
Her lamp does not go out at night.
19 She puts her hands to the distaff,
and her hands hold the spindle.
20 She opens her hand to the poor
and reaches out her hands to the needy.
21 She is not afraid of snow for her household,
for all her household are clothed in scarlet.
22 She makes bed coverings for herself;
her clothing is fine linen and purple.
23 Her husband is known in the gates
when he sits among the elders of the land.
24 She makes linen garments and sells them;
she delivers sashes to the merchant.
25 Strength and dignity are her clothing,
and she laughs at the time to come.
26 She opens her mouth with Wisdom,
and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
27 She looks well to the ways of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
28 Her children rise up and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
29 “Many women have done excellently,
but you surpass them all.”
30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
31 Give her of the fruit of her hands,
and let her works praise her in the gates.
As the Proverbs 31 woman, Manuela was of noble character. She was trustworthy, and Arnulfo could always rely on her. She was a hard worker, diligent in her responsibilities, and not idle. Adela, her younger sister described her as:
She was known for her Wisdom and good judgment. She was known for her compassion and kindness, both within her family and toward others. She had strength, both physically and in character. She managed her household, provided for her 11 children, and prepared them all for their future.
Most importantly, her worth was not just in her external qualities but also in her reverence of God.
God created marriage to be a metaphor for Christ’s relationship to the church and Manuela was just that-a perfect bride. As such, the selfless, hardworking, considerate, and pleasing woman was allowed by God to create a perfect union with Arnulfo. Like the woman in proverbs 31 Manuela was a woman married to Christ and Arnulfo became her earthly husband.
Perhaps her parents weren’t perfect as is nobody; but their marriage reflected Arnulfo as the head (while Manuela’s neck turned it). Smile.
Letting out a sigh, Sadie continues with the editing of her parents love story just as her friend Armonia sent her a video of snow falling in her backyard; white fluffy wisps of nature reminding them that He’s got this. God is always in total control. God is Nature, isn’t He?
Sadie recalls the stories she has gathered from her older sister Meli and Elva; along with Nena, Martha and Tia Adela and she imagines them beginning their marriage in a desolate area.
“I can imagine what my mother went through,” sighs Sadie, “a young girl of almost 18 years old leaving her parents and siblings behind.” Sadie herself recalls her mother telling her that her younger brothers wept as she left their ranch in Matamoritos. Why wouldn’t they, when “Mema” was their precious oldest sister who cooked for them, played with them, and joked with them as they were growing up? You see, “Mema” only had two sisters to the six boys that she cared for.
“No wonder mom was so strong and independent,” Sadie thinks “out in the ranch taking care of things as her parents labored with the bigger responsibilities!”
“Yes Chabela,” her sister Meli recalls “we had a great childhood in Guerrero Viejo, our first home…. we would sleep on large red slabs of sandstone (and when our cousins came over, about 12 of us would fit in one slab) under the gorgeous skies during the hot summer months… that rock felt cooler than our air conditioners do today,” she chuckles.
“Then one day, our hearts were crushed when Dad slowly got off La Paloma, his horse, and dejectedly handed Mom a large, yellow manila folder.”
“Aqui tienes Meme, la herencia para nuestros hijos.”
Mother immediately knew what was in the envelope. Days before, Meli and Elva had overheard them talking about a dam that the U.S. government would build close to Guerrero Viejo.
Hugging each other tightly, Meli recalls how they all wept, knowing that their birth home would soon be destroyed by the rising waters of the reservoir.
***
When they married, Arnulfo received land from his father Papa Adolfo, a wealthy rancher and Tia Adela describes it as being a huge, isolated parcel, with hundreds of mesquite trees, perenial needlegrass, and giant slabs of limestone/sandstone. “El Cabarete,” it was called and it was roughly “siete leguas” from Mier past the Arroyo Coronel. (about 21 miles,) To wash their clothes, Manuela used wild sage and using a sulfur creek nearby and sandstones, she would strike and rinse the clothes until they were spotless and fragrant.
“When we got sick,” adds Meli, “Mom would prepare a drink with wild sage that she had picked out carefully, boiled it over coals and as it turned pink, she added milk…We weren’t squeamish or anything, because it really was delicious as Mom prepared it. The first time Elva and I saw Mom preparing it, we hid since we didn’t know what we would be drinking. Soon after our tummies felt better, we actually looked forward to it,” she chuckles.
“As we got better, Mom would make “agua de arroz” and when we were really ill, she would make another concoction to make us vomit whatever was making us ill. There was also ‘Mirasol,’ a yellow flower Mom would use to heal our head sores since we were always rolling in the ground…After that, mom would take us to the sulfur creek nearby and wash our heads and soon thereafter, our sores were healed and our hair shone like the noon sun!
“Love was always around us,” she continues, “we had lots of cousins and our grandparents always wanted us to get together, play, and chat. ‘Our love was as pure as gold.”
Sadie has enjoyed gathering stories from her older sisters, her oldest brother-in-law Noe, some of her cousins, and her Tia Adela, her mother’s only living sibling.
“Our drinking water we had to haul from town,” continues her Aunt Adela, “She would make your two oldest sisters the most delicious porridges out of milk, cinammon, and sweet potatoes that was very nutritious.” “And I recall how once, your mother and your Dad had a disagreement and I actually slept between them to keep my sister safe,” she smiles even though I must’ve been about 6 or 7 at the time.”
“Another time,” she continues, “your Dad was away in Mier selling his mesquite logs when one of his cousins who liked your mother tried to force himself into the house. He knew that your father was away on business and it would take him about 4-5 days by horse to get back. “Nothing was impossible for her,” she continues, “so she fought him off and I remember even I lunged at him more than once until your Mom kicked him so hard in his privates and punched him that he fell backwards and in his drunken stupor, he laid there all night,” she laughs.
“She was very intelligent and creative and even though she suffered a lot being out there in a desolate ranch when your Dad was in town, she always found a way to get ahead and protect her children.”
Letting out a gentle sigh, her Tia Adela recalls how she and her younger brother Alonzo would spend summers with her. “Papa was very protective of her, and she really was her favorite daughter, so we would be sent to be with her, and even though we were scared out in the huge ranch in the middle of nowhere, we loved being with her.”
There is a pause in the phone conversation as her aunt recalls when Sadie’s second oldest sister Manuelita died at 9 months of age. “I know your mother was very strong, but your sister’s death was a very tough and sad time for her and I remember she cried a lot as she couldn’t do anything to save her baby from meningitis, which was rampant at that time (around 1940)
After they left Guerrero Viego, Sadie’s parents settled in Cd. Mier and they built a beautiful brick home that Mom painted beautifully.
Now, Sadie understands why she is fiercely protective of her heart despite freely loving all around her. Now, Sadie realizes her mother’s sharp wit and discernment of spirit. “And as if on cue, Sadie glances as she hears a mockingbird that has been coming up to her kitchen window in the mornings as she writes.
“Dear Lord, you are truly genuine, as I know that my mother’s spirit is in that bird…it was her favorite.”
(to be continued)
