Show and Tell - Love Story Part 2

Welcome to my entry to Mel's Show & Tell. This is the second post in a short series. If you missed last week, you can view it here. It was a story with a connection about an Airport, this is a story with a connection about a house.

When I was about two, my parents settled in the suburbs. This was after living all over Central and South America with the geophysical company my father worked for. I lived the typical lower middle class life through age 15. Kindergarten, Elementry, Middle School and Junior High. Even though my mother is Guatemalan, I never learned Spanish. My father feared discrimination of his children if they grew up with accents. Idoitc I know. I took a few years between 7th and 9th grade, and it helped, but boy was it difficult for me later on.

After a while my father was laid off from the geophysical company when I was in the second grade he and started his own business. It worked fairly well for a while, but we were never in a financial good place.

My father's brother, let's call him Uncle Julio is also a geophysicist. In the 70's and early 80's he worked in Guatemala. In fact that's kind of how my parents met, in that my father was working with his brother when he went to a New Year's party and met my mom. They married there and eventually would spend a lot of time at Uncle Juio's. He and his wife have three children, and they all spent their high school years there. This is a picture of four out of five of them in their backyard. Below is a photo of me at this house. This was the only time I had ever been to Guate, before I was 15.

I grew up hearing the stories and seeing the photos of my Uncle's family living in Central America. I always thought how exotic, and exciting and nothing like my life. My parents never had the funds to visit family in Guatemala or to take us down to show us the country my mother was from. Furthest from my mind was that I would met the man that I married.

Then at 15 my father decided to take a job that would move us down there. My mother's sister and brother in law had a business with mulitple factories and offered to give one to my father to eventually take over. Well, that was the original plan.

After finishing my freshman year of high school, before I knew it I was living there. Of course this was a big culture shock. But, it was mostly difficult because of my family life. After 18 months my father took off with the receptionist and never really came back. Now the three of us, my mother and brother and I barely survived. Without my church and youth group, we probably would not have.

Two weeks before my eighteenth birthday, I met this guy. I introduced myself and invited him to join us for our Youth Group New Year's Party. I didn't realize it at the time, but this guy was smitten with me. He wan't going to miss that party for anything. Well, except an extremely bad case of the flu. I never saw him that night. I also never saw him in Church again for about six weeks. Then at a Superbowl Party, I went to answer the door and there he was. I was immediately excited. We ended up chatting throughout the whole game. We quickly became close friends. He is my Mr. Marvelous.

Five months later, our church had a family picnic at a waterpark. My mother sat at the same table as Mr. Marvelous's parents. Then his dad, pointed something out. He said, "How interesting to meet three people by the last name of ____. I work with a guy named ____ ____." (My maiden name is Scotch Irish - not very common at all in Central America.) My mother knew he was a geophysicist and she put the two together. "Why that would be my husband." What we had just learned was not only the whereabouts of my father who had left us two years prior but also that Mr. Marvelous's dad was my dad's boss.

Later that day I took a bad fall and hurt my ankle badly. Marvy picked me up and carried me to the car. He took very good care of me. But, I needed crutches, X-rays, a cast. All things my mother could not afford. The next week my father showed up. This was because his boss -Marvy's father - demanded he do something to help me.

Shortly after, Marvy and I started dating. We were dating for a few months and eventually we received an invitation to have "brunch" with his Grandmother. This was a big deal. As Marvy and I drove to her house, I thought it was interesting that they lived close to the Airport. I thought to myself, "Didn't Uncle Julio used to live around here?"

And there it was. The house in those photos above. It was literally across the small street from each other. I have photos of me as a baby in that house in Guatemala...and Marvy has baby and childhood photos of him in the house accross the street. I have photos of my parents in that house...and Marvy has photos of his parents in that house accross the street. I have photos of my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in that house...Marvy has photos of the his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in the house accross the street.