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The Family Curse

I sat in my mother’s kitchen watching her deep fry some empanadas I had helped her stuff earlier. My son ran around playing by himself and begging me to join him.

“It’s no fun to play by myself” he wined.

I look towards my mom and excused myself, she shook her head at me and said “That boy needs a sibling. It is no good for a kid to grow alone. He is five now, don’t you think it’s time for another one? A little girl, it be great if you had a girl”

Her words ran a chill down my back. I love my son but I could never deal with another child. My son is a good boy very attached to me, he constantly asks me to play with him and to read to him. I tell you it isn’t easy, I know the words to Dr. Seuss ‘Are you my Mother?” by memory, but I don’t mind like I said I love my son.

We where visiting my mom for a couple of weeks and unfortunately it seemed as though there weren’t any kids in her neighborhood making my young one very bored and extremely clingy.

“You should have a girl” my mother would say over and over again “It would do the boy good and I really would like a little granddaughter. Could you see it? Oh, we would dress her like a doll.”

I would roll my eyes at her and change the subject. One day I decided to ask her what would guarantee me a girl. She smiled and said I know so.

That is my mother for you, she believes she can tell what a baby will be before it is even conceived, but I won’t be having any more kids. You see I believe I’ve finally broken the family curse, after three generations I had a boy before a girl. Now I know it’s the man who gives the baby its sex and what ever, but keep an opened mind with me.

My family’s curse began with my grandmother when her mother, my great-grandmother said to her 12 faithful words “With your daughters, you will suffer what you have made me suffer”

My grandmother was the youngest of 8, four girls and four boys. They were a very catholic family. My grandmother was very close to her mother, being the baby and all. She will always tell you how she would hang on to her mothers long skirts and fallow around like a lap dog.

She went to school and got better grades than most her siblings. She graduated and worked in the department of agriculture as a secretary. There she befriended another secretary about a year older than my grandmother. Now do I think what grandma did was wrong? No. Did my great-grandmother more than 3 decades later think it was so terrible? No. But at the time it was almost like treason.

Grandma got invated to attend a Baptist church, and not only did she attend but she joined?! It was out rage in her house, she was punished, and she was even beaten!! But she kept strong and continued with church.

After some time, her older brother –who since her fathers death had been consider ‘the man’ of the house- said “I want to see what it is you like about this church. How have they managed to brain wash you”

To make this story short we are all now Baptists. But before my great-grandmother and great uncles and aunts converted something else happened.

At work grandma met a man 30 years older than her!! The church and now the older man had my great-grandmother crying and wondering where she had gone wrong. They prohibit my grandmother to have any contact with this man.

One night after a nasty fight over being caught getting out this man’s car, grandma sneaked out her window, ran off and got married to my grandfather. The day her mother found, with her eyes full of tears she said “With your daughters, you will suffer what you have made me suffer”

Fourty years after all of this grandma is still happily married and has 3 kids of her own 2 girls and a boy. My mom was the oldest. She was the rebel of the family.

If today you ask my mom she will never admit to what she did.

She was expelled from 3 different schools, she thought she owned the world and knew it all. Now my mom didn’t switch religions but she did the worst of the worst or so it felt at the time to Grandma, she still doesn’t like it and hopes one day mom will quit smoking. Mom wore long blood red nails since the tender age of fifteen; her cloths seemed to be a second skin and rarely covered anything at all.

Mom had a party to go to every weekend and tended to disappear during the summer. Grandma says my moms mouth was worst than a poisonous snake, she had an answer to everything and many times had grandma in tears by the end of a fight.

You might be wondering why it is that grandma has told me all this, when you meet my sister you will know why.

Then my mom also met a man, a man 10 years older than her. A drug addict good for nothing, of course grandma and grandpa prohibit mom from seeing him at all. One night mom sneaked out her window to meet with him and run off, mom was only 16.

But grandma having done the same was under her window waiting for her.

Mom stayed home but dropped out of school. It seemed as though the man had finally left their lives and grandma thought perhaps she had finally suffered everything her mother had suffered and things would be smooth from then on. Grandma was wrong; you see that is how the curse works, with each daughter it gets just a little bit worst.

Mom got pregnant. Oh! The humiliation, she got pregnant at sixteen and out of wedlock! What will the neighbors say?

Something I haven’t mentioned about mom is that she was and is Grandpas favorite, she is the light of his eyes and through it all to him she never did any wrong. Grandpa hit reality like a huge brick wall in his path.

Mom had always wanted to travel; she wanted to go to Asia. When mom announced she was pregnant and getting married grandma cried into her hands and said “With your daughters, you will suffer what you have made me suffer”

Grandpa left and bought two tickets one for him and one for mom to China.

“Don’t marry him and let’s go” he said handing her the tickets. She broke them and married my dad.

For those of you who have no kids, this whole pain thing might not be that obvious, but a mother loves her kids more than she does her live. Seeing them take decisions that will lead them to pain is the worst that could happen, feeling your self unable to protect them like you once did, feeling like a failure. Failing at parenthood must be the worst failure of all.

I’m not saying my grandmother failed, no not at all.

I was born 8 months after mom and dad married and a year later was my sister. Everyone says I was an incredibly good baby. My mom like my grandmother soon forgot all about the words. We grew up and everything was ok. I was the shy one and she was the lively one.

She had all the friends, she loved to talk, to dance to have attention. I was in the shadow and never really cared.

When we were 13 we started going out with friends. My sister friends were my friends and usually older than her. We rarely got in trouble, I was the conscience the one that kept us out of trouble and my sister was the one that made things fun and interesting.

One night when I was 15 and she was 14 we had a party a friend of us was suppose to pick us up, but got herself grounded. My sister talked to my mom who said we could take a cab or so I thought.

The party was terrible and by 12 it was over. Our friends then headed to the clubs and we fallowed. We arrived home at 3am and my mom was waiting for us, she had said that if our friend wasn’t going we weren’t going. Busted!

Live went on, a couple of house parties went right and few went wrong. Every time we would both be grounded and I would get chewed off for being the oldest one and the one expected to be responsible.

Time went on and we grew apart, I had my friends and she had hers. That’s when the fights between mom and her started the yelling the door slamming and the tears. Mom would cry to me wondering where she had gone wrong. She’d ask me to talk to her, but we where no longer close, she was popular and happy, I was dark and conformed.

Mom was unhappy with how I dressed and the music I listened to. With my sister she was worried sick, she didn’t like her friends or boyfriends, she had no control over where she went or how long she stayed. My sister stopped going to school and mom received embracing phone calls from the principal.

At seventeen I got pregnant at eighteen, I was married. My mom was disappointed never expecting me to be the one. She cried said she always thought I’d go to college, that she never wanted me to suffer what she did.

My sister had the best excuse for everything she did “hey, at least I didn’t get pregnant” things got bad, we never knew where she was, she would come home high. She yelled at mom and disrespected her constantly.

One night she didn’t come home, I was 7 months pregnant and drove around looking for her, mom was at home waiting, fearing the worst with the phone held tight against her chest. It was a big fight, mom slapped my sister and I had to hold my sister back, I really thought she might hit mom back. Then mom said the words as we both stood in front of her “With your daughters, you will suffer what you have made me suffer”

So why don’t I have another baby? Can you guarantee me it won’t be a girl?

Then my son was born, mom, grandma and my sister where at the hospital with me, they all smiled at him and we all laughed and hugged and where just generally happy.

My sister went back to school and graduate from high school, she went on to a community college and a year later transferred to a university with perfect marks.

Great grandma grew too old to live alone and moved in with Grandma they grew incredibly close and Grandma was more than happy to be spending that time with her, they talked and forgave.

Mom and Grandma grew closer together; they are always on the phone. One night while babysitting my son together my mom layed her head on Grandmas shoulder.

“It is just so hard” she said

“I know” Grandma said she held my son close to her “Watching them grow and seeing the awful mistakes you thought they were making weren’t really that bad. Watching them be mothers and then if lucky enough Grandmother’s makes it all worth it.” Grandma kissed Mom’s fore head.

“I’m sorry for everything, Mom” Mom knew that live could have been easier. Mom knew she could have listen to Grandma and avoided a divorce, avoided lots of heart ache, but she had two daughters and a grandson that were worth every tear.

My sister and mom still fight. They still disagree and still scream, but my sister has changed, has matured and knows mom’s words aren’t meant to ruin her life but to try and avoid her some heart aches. Mom now knows that sometimes with your kids you just have to watch them fall, and wait and see if maybe they need your help getting up.

My son broke the curse, my Sister says so. She says that little boy changed her life, he changed mine too. I’m not saying us girls are bad… but with an angel like mine why would I want to risk it.

The End

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a lot of this is true and lot of it is exagerated. This is me pocking a bit of fun at my family.

I have a wonderful mom and there is no one as good as my Grandmother, she is an angel. I dedicated this to them for everything me and my sister have put them through and as thank you for everything they have done for us.

My sister got the whole curse idea in my head, since she says she won't have kids because of how she has been as a kid. Also my mom has been pestering me about having another kid. I say hell no one is more than enogh, thank you very much.