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Elimination?
Many years ago, 1989 to be exact, I bought a house in an older neighborhood in Sacramento. Most of the homes were small Victorians with elderly owners who had been there for years. Some previous owner had put an addition onto the house, planning to have an in home business, but the county put a stop to that. So, I had two front doors one at each end of the house facing the street. Lack of openness by the seller, I soon discovered there were drug dealers next door. Took me near a year to get rid of them, and I open carried every time I worked in my yard.
There was a young Hispanic couple in the house on the other side of the druggies, with a small little girl. They called her Chiquita, a cute two- or three-year-old. I made it a point to get acquainted with them, and they helped me organize a “Neighborhood Watch” group so we could help the older folks if they needed, and we were able to stop the druggies from terrorizing the neighborhood. I became extremely fond of this young family, from Guatemala, who were in the country legally. The wife had already obtained her citizenship, but hubby was having difficultly with his English. All my grandchildren called me Kay Grandma, to keep me separated from all their other grandmas and great grandmas. So, Chiquita started calling me Kay grandma, and soon both her mom and dad were calling me Kay Grandma. They had another little one, a boy, they gave him an English name.
Fast forward, life happens. My mother became ill and needed care, my house was foreclosed as I could not keep up the payments, my mother’s care, keeping up her house payments, and for several years paying for someone to daycare her while I worked. It really got too much so I took early retirement to stay with her myself. After she passed away, I had funeral expenses and my siblings paid for none of it. Not the care, house upkeep, nor funeral. Then my siblings had me evicted so they could sell her house. I lost track of my little family. I tried to find them before I came to MT but they had sold their house and moved.
Meantime, as I aged I forgot their last name. I am now living with Kaylett, and she wants me to seriously downsize. I have boxes and boxes of paper stuff, like old checks and bank statements, tax returns from 1960, etc. because I never, ever, throw out anything. You never know when something might come in handy. Having been raised in the Great Depression, I am very frugal. I have now shredded all of my 1989 bank records, 1990, ’91, and in ’92 came upon a check I had paid the young couple for cleaning out my Comfort Coach, that my older daughter had trashed. Both of their names were on the check in full. So I did a web search and think I found them, because one of their “related to” came up with the little boy’s English name. Though not a little boy any more. It’s been 26 years since I last had contact with them. So I wrote a “To Whom It May Concern” letter, giving my particulars, and hope I had the right people.
Last night the phone rang, and a familiar voice rang out, “Kay Grandma” is that you?
Published in General
Outstanding! What a nice connection.
What are you, trying to make me cry? I’m 66 years old, damn it. I—(sob)
Nice story, Kay.
That’s okay @garymcvey, I’m 80 and I cried also, there were several of us crying. They had been looking for me as well. Chiquita is all grown up and went to Law School and is an attorney in Sacramento. She remembered the first book I gave her when she was about 2, Good Night Moon, and she still has it. She is married with 2 little ones of her own, so I’m going to adopt them as my grand kids. She has a 4 year old girl. And an 8 mo old son. Poor dear, I think I will unload a lot of books on her for her kids.
Blurry screen time…Happy for you for so many reasons, Kay! What a lovely story.
What a wonderful thing to happen. Wow. Love hearing this. :-)
Kay, that is Just Too Cool.
Don’t try to kid us, Percival. We can see the iron under the eye slits in your face mask start to rust. Salt water does that.
Great story! Thanks.
Yeah, okay, so the pages will have to break out the brillo pads this weekend …
Even at this poignant moment, in Kay’s wonderful post, in the middle of the night I can’t help remember a headline from the New York Daily News nearly fifty years ago (BTW, back when it was a beacon for NYC’s cops, Catholics, small business owners, homeowners and other conservatives). The heir to the Brillo family fortune was the victim of a Manhattan safecracking ring. The headline–
“Brillo Pad Scoured of 40 Gs”
What a reunion story!
What I find most heartwarming about this story is your connection, after so long, to these neighbors. When I look at the world today, I see such a lack of long term connections, even to close family and old friends, let alone neighbors. It seems most of the people around me just barely remember past friends, and move on never to look back. And I don’t want to get in to the way I see family members treat each other. Out of sight, out of mind, out of each others lives forever. A sorry state for any family.
Bless you for your loyalty, if that is the right word, to your past neighbors, and for the blessing I know your effort to reconnect is to them. People, really, are all that matter. The rest is dressing.
I wanted to convey that emigrants to this country, south of our boarders are not all scumbags. To be honest, it never occurred to me to think differently. One little argument I had with the mom, we were discussing different people of color. I tried to convince her there were only 3 races on this planet, White, Black and Asian. She didn’t believe me, but admitted she wasn’t Black or Asian. So you are White, no? That took her a little while to absorb.
Then, one of my little grandsons fell head over heals in like with Chiquita, brought her in the house and announced to every one he was going to marry her when they grew up. They were ages 2 and 3. I asked him how he would support her, and he said he was going to be a doctor, and Chiquita responded she was going to be one too. Well says I, you had better start learning to read, and gave them both a book, started with Good Night Moon. They were so darn sweet. Later on gave them Dr. Suss books.
Sniff.
So wonderful, Kay. What a gift you all were and are to each other !
I hope this is just Chapter 1. More please.
P.S.
Sounds like you have a real loving family with your gracious siblings and all. I had to laugh when you said you said you “open carried” while working on the lawn. I’ll bet that got the neighborhood buzzing.
Tears on keyboard. So glad you were able to reconnect with your friends? (Or are they family, Kay Granma?)
Those jerks were coming in every 15 minutes or so and would drive across lawns of the old folks. I went out one day with my gun in full sight, and chased a group of them out of the yard of some sweet folks across the street and threaten to blow their tires out if they did it again. One guy got out of his car with a roll of cash about 5″ thick and offered it to me, and I threatened his tires as well. Then I hung a sign on my front fence, “You sell, I tell” and Kaylett had a fit. She tore it down and I put it right back up. That was in an age when I had a .357 Magnum, and PMS and feared nothing. I would have rather blown their gonads off, but that might have killed some of them.
The neighborhood realized I wasn’t afraid of the druggies, and began to cooperated with my newly established Neighborhood Watch program. The local police were getting about 4 calls a day from everyone in the neighborhood. And, I found out the name and phone No. of the owner of the house, who lived in San Fran. I went to everybody with the landlord’s info, and offered to pay the long distance calls for those who called the landlord when they called the police. I was determined to get these people out of my neighborhood, and away from my grandchildren and the other children.
I had a dog that was part Shepard, and the druggies were afraid of her as well. They probably got the shock of their life when she came at them one night right though the front window, taking the glass, drapes and screen with her. My yard and drive way was well fenced, but not lock and anyone could get into my yard. Most of the neighbors were not fenced. Everyone soon knew that if Bear was barking, someone was messing, so it alerted them to call the police. Pretty good system with a trained dog and a gun.
Now that I have found them again, I am going to adopt them and they are family. They plan on coming to MT next summer, bar another forest fire.
Congratulations and best wishes on finding your family.
Ohhh Kay, this is most excellent!
Wonderful, wonderful story!