For the Spanish-American waiter it is
probably rare for a “gringo familia” to respond to him in his native
language. At least, we think he
spoke Spanish. After stumbling
over his pronouns, and adjectives he hurried off to start our order. We are strange like that, not your
typical American family.
Mom and Dad are very cultured. They know their way around the
world. In my short seventeen years
I have been to England, France, Nicaragua, The Bahamas, and Canada. I’ve found my way around the United
States as well. My favorite has
always been Nicaragua (located in Central America).
When we scheduled my first trip there, I
was so excited; we gathered medical equipment, packaged food, and scrubs
(medically sterile clothing). But since it was six months off, the excitement
faded a lot over the next couple weeks.
We went on with life.
Christmas was coming soon and we were all
abuzz. It’s always been an
unspoken competition between my siblings and I, to see who would get my parents
the best presents. We would always
interrogate each other trying to figure out what the other kid’s present was,
until we would either get socked or chased. What we didn’t know is that Dad had gotten the best present
of all.
Christmas morning rolled around; the 8:00
rule states, very clearly, that we are not to even move an inch from our beds
until the clock say 8:01. At 8:02,
we have a headlong collision elbowing our way to the living room. As we sit and fidget on the couch, we
make uncommonly loud noises trying to wake up Mom and Dad without getting in trouble.
Finally, we open stockings, read the Christmas story, get dressed, ate brunch,
all the while clamoring for our parents to hurry up and let us give them their
presents. We don’t really like
receiving as much as giving. Giving is more fun. But we had a huge surprise when Mom’s turn came around.
Her eyes got real big when she opened up
a Spanish program, lovingly dubbed the “Generic” Rosetta Stone. It definitely was the highlight of that
Christmas. It too was soon
forgotten in the rush of family, baking, and frankly the craziness of it all. We went on with life, and everything
calmed down. One day in January, I
guess my mom just woke up and decided to learn Spanish. She even came running into my room and
threw open the shades to let in the sun. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mom, but
I am not a morning person. At all.
So when she came pounding in, I
was all grumpy, of course. But
naturally I was curious to see what she was so excited about.
When I made my way downstairs I was
surprised to see mom blowing the dust off of the ol’ generic Spanish
program. She promptly sat me down
in a chair and sat down next to me and then, we learned Spanish. We learned several different dialects;
a couple differed by country, some by provinces. We traversed to Central America in the comfort of our own
kitchen. When my sister came home,
we would crowd around her, crooning out soft words, and then yelling out mispronounced
pronouns, all the while, so proud of our “Logros” (achievements). The Nicaragua trip was getting so close
and we were working our butts off to learn any bit of Spanish that we
could.
When the trip finally came around, we packed
up and flew off to the Central American jewel. What I didn’t expect was to find a desolate, horrid,
dump. The crazy thing is that the
people are so happy. Uncommonly
happy for their situation. The
children always had smiles of joy when they ran to our clinic screaming “tenemos
que ir!-We must go!” as they dragged me to the yard to play fútbol. I loved that trip. It taught me a lot of insight on
life.
While we were on the trip, my father
bought a hammock. It’s usually tradition for him to buy one every year that
he’s gone, and give it to someone. He’s been going there for 18 years. That is a lot of hammocks. I believe we have four or five. Those swinging glories have been a
large part of my childhood. Since
I’ve moved to Tennessee, I have missed the symmetrical union of tree and
hammock that was available to me for 12 years of my life. I learned life lessons on hammocks, I
sat with my crush on the hammock, I lots of things to remember on hammocks.
But the best memories I have on the big white
hammock, are from books. I
remember getting lost in Mordor with Frodo, and traveling with Aslan in
Narnia. I remember the nights in
the warm summer falling asleep in a tangle of hands and feet with my siblings
and father, all trying to fit on the hammock. He would announce that it was time for bed, and we would
race upstairs, trying to see who would get teeth brushed, hair combed, and
showered first.
Snuggling down underneath the green
canopy, we would lose ourselves in the worlds of C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R.
Tolkien. We would fall asleep
under the stars as my dad’s deep baritone filled the air. He actually put himself to sleep once.
It was funny, we all woke up and we couldn’t stop laughing when we saw dad,
mouth wide open, and snoring.
The joy of being a family is a dying
art. My family practices that art
with a flair. Sure, we’re not
perfect, but we sure come close in my eyes. Whenever you have more memories of laughter than crying and
more life lessons than not, you know that you are in a very good
environment. I can only hope to
transfer this peace and joy onto a family of my own someday. For now, I just have to buy a hammock.
