“For these two years since Leila’s death, along with her widower and one other friend, I have been coediting the gorgeous unfinished book she left behind, a sprawling portrait of her native Lebanon. Every time I enter those pages, I see new things about Leila, what she loved and feared and longed for, her most secret and treasured visions.”
— “Every Day of Her Life” by Carolina De Robertis, Count On Me: Tales of Sisterhoods and Fierce Friendships
ESCRITORA CHALLENGE: Write about someone special you lost that you felt left behind something inspiring – a story, a possession, or perhaps just a feeling? Share your short piece in the comments section below! It can be as short or as long as you’d like.
Below is a an example written by comadre Alexandra M. Landeros, who earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University in 2004 and wrote her thesis under the direction of renowned Latino author Dagoberto Gilb. Her articles and columns have been published in Latino Magazine and TODO Austin, and she is currently working on a collection of nonfiction short stories about growing up in the United States and Mexico.
My great-grandfather in Los Angeles where he worked as a day laborer in the mid-1920s. This is their passport photo. My grandmother (the baby on the right) was born an American citizen.
I’ve been fortunate not to have suffered many losses throughout my life. Both of my parents and two siblings are still alive. At the age of thirty-six, I still have both paternal grandparents, all six aunts and uncles, and all eighteen primos. On my mother’s side, we lost my my grandmother after a long fight with respiratory problems, and we did suddenly lose my uncle due to an unexpected heart attack, which was definitely a shock to us all.
I have not lost any close friends – only friends whom I’d had some connection with in the past but had lost touch with long ago. Or friends of friends, whom I’d barely gotten to know or had never met, who had left behind a legacy, whether it was some type of creative work or their extreme generosity as a caring human being. I was inspired by these people, but I never felt a true loss.
But in terms of losing someone close to me who has left behind something of great impact, the person who comes closest to that is my great-great grandfather on my father’s side – my Abue’s father. Growing up, I always had this intense urge to write. I filled up over a dozen notebooks and journals with personal thoughts and made-up stories. No one told me to write – no one expected it of me.
As an adult in my late twenties, I learned that my great-grandfather had left behind several notebooks filled with stories written by hand (a possible mix of fiction and nonfiction…no one will ever really know), and I’ve been trying to get my hands on the originals. I’ve received a few transcribed pages, which I’ve translated. One particular section is called “The Three Wives of Luis Aguilar.”
My great-grandfather started working for the Mexican railroads as an apprentice mechanic at the age of 16, in the year of 1908. Two years after the start of the Mexican Revolution, in 1912, he was recruited as a volunteer solider in Mexico City. From there, he traveled all over Mexico – by the time he was 21 years old, he wrote, “Por supuesto este es el principio de mis aventura a la edad de 21 años.” Of course, this is the start of my adventures at the age of twenty one.
Everything was an adventure to him, as he describes in the few pages I have been able to read. But no matter what job position he had, or what happened to his first marriage (I’ve yet to read about the second and third wives), or what social opportunities he had (or most likely didn’t have, being a member of the working class and not believing in labor unions), he continued to write and fill up the pages of his journals.
The loss I feel now is not for his passing, as Luis Aguilar died before I was born. The loss I feel is for the time I’ve lost in gathering these types of personal stories from relatives who are still alive. Even though I have never met the infamous Luis Aguilar, I feel as if he left behind his spirit of adventure – and the treasure of his words – and the desire and motivation to capture stories that will live on through the generations.