Casa

In my family “cautionary tales” are told often. I think they are my most favorite part of the holidays.  My Great Grandma is our family’s ‘mama’ she knows every story so well. There is one story I remember, I think I remember it most because it is my favorite… when my grandmother was a teenager she never really got to date, her mother taught her to be conservative, and to always respect herself. Well my great grandma got the bright idea to have a secret relationship, with a man who was two to three years older than her. In her mind she didn’t think that her mother knew. So my great grandmother got the bright idea that she would run away with this man. Her mother constantly, reminding her “you are a lady, and all men are animals using you for now only to take something else from another willing party later.” My Great Grandmother had got up the courage to pack up all her clothes and move out of her mother’s house at the young age of sixteen. She arrived at her boyfriend’s house to find him in the company of another woman, but not just any woman, but my Great Grandmother’s cousin. She never told her mother that she moved out. She just went home placed her clothes neatly back into her closet and pretended that it never happened.  The story is told to my family to assure the younger girls that even when we think we know just a little bit more than our parents we still should listen because they know more than we do and in the long run it can save us from heartbreak later. I too like my great grandmother thought I could move out, but in my case I did. I ended up learning the same lesson two years after I moved in only I didn’t listen to my mother’s cautioning voice.