In my family we have the great blessing that today my “mama Yaya” my maternal grandmother turns 94 years old; and except that she struggles a bit to hear and that sometimes she doesn’t see very well, she is a woman in good health for her age; she only leans on one of her grandchildren or children to walk. However, what she is 100 percent of her is from her memory and to that I add that she is an extraordinary storyteller and a very funny conversationalist. My dad Boyo got her pregnant many times, but my uncles Willy and Elvia managed to live and live. Christian, Leonel (the piru), Tanita, Sandrita and my mother “the teacher Artemisa”.
My Yaya met my dad Boyo in his hometown Los Mezquites above Porogui municipality of Sinaloa; From there they came to Los Mochis with many shortages and with enormous efforts sewing clothes they managed to buy a stall in the Independencia market and then they bought another and thus selling fruits and vegetables they managed to settle on a small piece of land where they built their house and where they still live today. my mom Yaya for Mario Gaxiola.
Anecdotes of my mom Yaya I can write a book with them and I mean it literally because I have hours and hours of recordings of our conversations about her early years, the austere life on the ranch, her enormous ambition to get ahead and come to “the city” to to prosper, which motivated her to convince my dad Boyo to come and make life in Los Mochis and to this day we continue to have a lot of fun in the interviews I do with him about what life was like in those years and to learn about my humble origins. family. There are dozens of passages from her living history, some very funny like when she told me about how she planned to “steal my dad Boyo to get married and come to live in Mochis”, hard moments like when she had to design an incubator with cups of water and candles to keep her baby alive, my aunt Elvia and sad moments when she had to face the departure of two of her grown children and others who died as babies.
However, despite everything I can describe my granny as a happy woman, super hardworking and extraordinarily intelligent and a believer in God; however, her greatest virtue is the inheritance that she has left us to generations of all her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of hers; a legacy of values that today are necessary in our world. She taught us the value of work, of fighting for your dreams, of overcoming yourself and getting ahead, but above all things without ever abusing anyone and always being an honest person. To this day, I approach my grandmother to ask for advice on my decisions at work, in politics and of course in how to educate my children.
Honesty, hard work and trustworthiness have been values that have forged my family, my father Boyo died at 64 years of age and being a humble person he had a funeral as if some famous artist had died, dozens of trucks arrived to his wake to say goodbye and pay his respects, I was very lucky that my first job was with them at the little market independence, it was also very fun and we ate like kings.
In retrospect, I look at our world and see the opposite: corruption in many public and private positions of power, neglect for vital issues such as caring for water and our environment, or the lack of public investment in new technologies and clean energy. The lack of courageous decisions to invest more intensely in the education of our children and youth with more spaces for the arts and sports. But despite these enormous challenges, I reflect on my mom Yaya and she smiled at the future with optimism and hope. Sometimes when there is war or massive famine in the other part of the planet, that should also help us to reflect and value what we have in our lives. Today on my mom Yaya’s 94th birthday I invite you to reflect on these values and an even greater one, the value of peace, my mom Yaya has taught us that in the face of abuse, kindness comes first; it is worth listening to great people, they have so much to teach us especially to build peace and happiness. Happy birthday mom Yaya will be many more than a hundred.
#life