When All The Laughter Turned To Sorrow...Family Doings...Morning At A Tex-Mex Cafe...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

McALLEN, Texas - Back when I was a young boy, when laughter filled my days, it was always the cooking hour at our home that drew the most attention, that created a familial noise I've not enjoyed in years. My mother would fire-up the old natural gas stove without announcement and it was the jingle-jangle of kitchenware that signaled something was up, that told us the ensuing gorgeous aroma would soon be another of her fantastic meals.

This is the time of the year when families get together to break bread, to catch-up, to become one again. Everybody drives or flies in, each bringing news of recent occurrences within their families. It is Life its ownself. Memories abound. My older sister laughing and then saying, "Remember when you used to like cheese?" That segued into something else. I'm good at remembering. It is the only talent my God threw into my soul, sparing no expense, it would seem.

And so the tamales would be prepared and the music coming off the radio my mother plugged into a kitchen electrical outlet would offer a neat soundtrack of traditional Mexican music. She would ask about everybody, and then about me, pulling info from my brothers and sister I would never share with her, such as stuff about my illnesses, my marriage, my work as a wandering Journalist, which for some reason she thought was dangerous work. I'd walk-in, knowing what she was doing, and she would change the subject, drawing that huge, loving smile from me. And I'd say, "Ask me. I'll tell you about all my problems..." But she wouldn't, and I suspected correctly that she didn't want to know that I was suffering or dealing with things she did not want associated with her favorite son. And that could be everything. Mothers know, of course.

So these days, it's all about remembering my dear mother. She passed away three years ago and I recall she summoned me to her hospital bed the day before she died and asked me to try and reconcile with my ex-wife. I told her I would do it. I called the mother of my two beautiful daughters and said, "Do you want to get back together?" She said, "No," and I said, "Well, I promised my Mom I'd ask you."

The book closes and we try to forget, is what Phil Collins sings in one of his songs. Yes, we try. Only, when this time of the year rolls around, it is human nature to want to think that one more family gathering is all-too-possible.

But it isn't. Everybody's got plans taking them elsewhere. My sisters in California and Colorado. My brother in Minneapolis. Life marches on, like some old movie film moving through a projector's sprockets unwilling to stop on any one single photo frame, moving to the tale's end. It's something to think about.

Yesterday, I joined an old friend and his wife here for breakfast at a Tex-Mex restaurant called Picosito's on busy North 23rd Street. It was late in the morning and the well-dressed church crowd was angling in. Tables soon filled and the sounds of family chatter sailed across the dining area, mixing nicely with the soft mariachi music spilling out of the speakers overhead. The larger portion of the customers were Hispanic, and it was good to again be amongst so many, to see happy-looking fathers with families in tow, to see fresh-faced kiddoes arriving with the idea of putting away a plate of tacos, ready to ask for drinks and then for re-fills until Mom said no more.

I stared across the restaurant, wishing like crazy that I could be one of those kids and that the attractive middle-aged mother would be my Mom. A sip of coffee chased that imagery.

And then I told myself I could never be that kid because his hair was cut too-short and that the mother could never be my Mom because my Mom was much-prettier...

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