Loco Familia.

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.