My Living Ancestor!
We usually refer to ancestors as people who came before us and have since passed away, but when you have walked in 2 centuries and 11 decades, at a minimum you are a walking tribute to a time gone by, and more than likely you are a living ancestor. My Grandmother turned 100 years old a few weeks ago. To honor her birthday 80 plus people related to her by blood, family, or choice gathered in a Hall and partied. My Grandmother, Georgina, known to me as Abuela or Mima but to so many others as Fena or Tia Fena is everyone’s aunt, cousin, friend, and grandmother. In attendance were her three children, including my father her youngest child at 69 years of age.
Who is my Grandmother?
Born March 20th, 1923 in Cuba she has traveled some and survived much in her life. Mima has been married twice. She divorced her first husband in the late 1940’s early 1950s, something very uncommon for its day. She left her first husband and took her two children to live alone, (or so she told everyone). Apparently, as the story really goes, she just left her husband but didn’t really divorce him until long after meeting the man that would become my grandfather and pretending to marry him so her family wouldn’t know the truth. Then sometime before my father was born, my grandfather finally convinced her ex-husband to allow her to keep her son and still divorce him. In Cuba in those days, sons belong to their fathers. Then sometime after my father was born, they decided to make their marriage official. What! I know right! Go, Grandma! She would soon leave Cuba behind, but not before sending my father away through what became known as Operation Peter Pan. She would live happily with my Grandfather here in Miami, then move to New Jersey and back down here to Miami, until 2003 when my Grandfather would pass away just shy of his 100 birthday himself. Rumor has it his birth year wasn’t documented properly so all I can say for sure is that his birth certificate says he was “97” but we are pretty sure it was closer to 99!
Becoming a Living Ancestor!
In 2003, at the age of 80, after becoming a widow, my Grandmother decided she would live alone. She has since spent the last 20 years doing so. She does not have a full-time nurse or live-in maid. She does have living assistance during the day but they usually end up being companions to her along with a daily row of visitors that come to see her, talk to her, and check on her. As a way to appease her worried children, she has even allowed cameras to be placed all over her house, but they rarely stop her from doing anything she doesn’t want to do. A few years ago she broke her hip days before Christmas, with surgery shortly after, but that didn’t stop her either. Instead of months of rehab and being told she might never walk properly again, she was walking on her own with minimal assistance from a walker within two months. The rehab center that had sworn she would need 8 to 12 weeks before maybe she could go home released her in under 6 weeks. To this day, she goes out in her yard daily and she maintains it herself going around the yard with her machete chopping branches and leaves where they don’t belong, and then cleaning up after herself. These days she does need her walker most of the time and has long since stopped fighting it, but ask her if she plans to move out soon or if she wants any help, get ready to be chastised for not believing she can do it.
To this day, she goes out in her yard daily and she maintains it herself going around the yard with her machete chopping branches and leaves where they don’t belong, and then cleaning up after herself.
Honoring my Grandmother.
Getting a chance to celebrate my grandmother’s 100th birthday has truly been an honor, I know I am blessed that she has been in my life for this long and that I live close enough to her to be part of her life. Watching my grandmother being showered by love day in and day out and seeing how many people gathered to wish her a Happy 100th birthday was magickal and inspiring. It is not every day you get to honor and celebrate a living ancestor and it is a gift that should be appreciated if you get the chance, but it also got me thinking. What can I do to honor all my ancestors in a better way?
Growing an Ancestral Practice.
The month of March, weirdly, is a very ancestral month for me with three of my grandparents having been born in March, it is a month that I spend a lot of time thinking about ancestors. A few years back I began to track birthdays and the day each ancestor passed away and I try to light a candle on those days to honor them. In doing so it has given me the chance to remember them, but I don’t have all the dates to a lot of my know ancestors and I have no way of knowing the ones that no one kept track of. Like so many that fled from Cuba, my family’s papers and history came in the form of what they could travel with and or what later made it across the Caribbean Sea through mail or other relatives that have come to the US. It’s patchy and incomplete. I have come to feel that my practice is not enough and I need to find a way to honor those known and unknown in a more regular practice. How is the question, and it is one I will be exploring in the coming months.
But it’s May?
So why post this now? I wanted to do this post justice. On the day of my Grandmother’s birthday party, I was in pain and suffering from a kidney stone that had moved. It took me weeks to recover and then weeks to catch up and I choose not to post this to make sure I gave this post my best. Kidney Stones are hereditary in my family so it seem to fit the theme for the month. It is now May, I am recovered and all caught up, and even as we head into summer I can hear fall and the ancestors calling. Time to buckle down and work on my ancestral practice.
Upcoming Events!
Friday, May 19th at 8 PM – Online Hekate Noumenia with Shaylee $5 Noumenia is a ritual honoring the Goddess Hekate. Join us, as we give offerings to Hekate. Click the link to register
June 8th – June 12 – Honoring Hekate at Summer Magick Fest – I will be attending and hosting a workshop at Summer Magick Fest in Orlando. Honoring Hekate during the summertime in Florida is a wonderful way to get to know Her Sea Goddess form, Hekate Einalia. come Join us at this wonderful Hotel Festival. Register here.