Right before my daughter was born I received the saddest news about my nephew Eyden, who passed away when I was pregnant. He had a brain stem tumor and was only five years old when he died. Thankfully, I cherished this one picture of the last time I saw Eyden. This picture brings back one of my favorite memories. It also makes me happy to remember I spent time with him before he passed. Eyden used to live in North Carolina, which is about nine hours driving, so I barely used to see him and he got sick around the time I got pregnant.
In this picture we were at the Toys R Us that was in Forty-second Street Times Square. We were sitting on the ferris wheel ride they had in there. Eyden wanted to ride on the Scooby Doo cart, which is the one, we were on in the picture, and you can see the bottom of Scooby Doo’s brown feet behind my head. Inside the cart was my brother Eric, which is Eyden’s father and his other son, my nephew Jesten were on one side of the cart, but they are not part of the picture. Eric did take the picture and was sitting right in front of Eyden, which is why only Eyden and I came out in this picture. The Scooby Doo cart we were in was the color blue grey on the inside and you could see that behind Eyden and I in the background.
Eyden was sitting right next to me on the cart. He is wearing a white long sleeve v-neck shirt with a small brown teddy bear on. The small teddy bear on his shirt lets me know that his shirt was from the clothing store Gap; they usually use the teddy bear for the children’s clothing. The shirt looks a little big on him loose on the sleeves and a little wrinkled. He is wearing black jeans, but you can only see the top half of the jeans. In his hand he is holding the ticket (with both hand) we had bought to get on the ride. It is a small grey and dark blue ticket with Geoffrey the Giraffe in the middle of the ticket, I think it might’ve had the price and/or time, maybe even the date on it but Eyden was shaking the ticket when the picture was taken so the ticket is a bit blurry in the picture and so is his left hand. I still have that ticket saved as a memory to help me remember Eyden. Eyden is smiling in the picture he was very excited to be on that ride we stood on the ride about five turns before I was too dizzy and we had to get off. Eyden had short black hair, looks like he might have needed a haircut, light pointy eyebrows, big eyes, a cute little nose and big ears that are popping out in the picture. His smile looks a little forced because he was already in pain from having his tumor.
If you are looking at the picture Eyden is sitting on the left and I am sitting right next to him to the right. In the picture I was wearing a black wool floppy hat or some people like to call it a beach hat, except this one is for the winter. Just like Eyden I am also wearing a white shirt, a long sleeve button down, with small ruffles on the top. One of my arms is positioned behind Eyden (my right arm) but you are able to see my hand, I am making a fist, most likely because my nails were not done. My left arm is barely visible because my purse is covering it. Therefore you are not able to tell if my shirt is long sleeve or not just by looking at the picture. My shirt is so long it covers most of my black leggings; you are only able to see a little bit of my leggings. My purse is sitting on my lap; you are only able to see part of my purse it is a medium size tote with a strap and a hand sanitizer is hanging from my bag it is attached to the outside. The hand sanitizer is in a little cover that has silver rhinestones from the store Bath and Body Works. To the right side of the picture you can see a small part of the pole that is holding the cart it was once grey but the paint was coming out. We are both wearing our seatbelts on the ride.
I cherish this picture because it helps me remember how much fun Eyden had that day and how he got everything he wanted. One day I will share this picture with my daughter who never got to meet him she would have loved him. I posted this picture on my social media with this caption:
“I remember this day everyday now, we had so much fun, you got everything you wanted I am glad you did because in life you never see things coming but when they do you look back and think where did time go? How did I get here? And if only I could go back and change the past, or even trade my life for someone else’s. Today I feel like this and been feeling like this since March 22nd when one of my babies turned into a little angel #teameyden always and forever, nothing or no one could ever cure or replace the pain and hurt I feel everyday now.”
In my family we share a few traditions for the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years) are the most important. Although, my favorite is Christmas because we get to do so much in so little time and spend so much time planning it and making it perfect. Christmas originally is the day Christian’s celebrate the birth of Christ but it has changed over the years and each family has adapted their own ways to celebrate it. In my family I feel like throughout the years it has changed also and each year we add something or someone new. It is also a very different celebrating it as a child and as an adult.
To prepare for Christmas my family (usually my grandma, aunt or mom) puts up a Christmas tree in their houses. Each of them has their own trees, which are recycled through the years. My mom will usually have one night usually before thanksgiving to decorate the tree. She would make hot cocoa and put on Christmas music in Spanish. I have three siblings and with me are four. We would have to untangle the Christmas lights, my mom would always buy so many and our Christmas tree was so small. She had all the colors too, one was red and green usually the traditional colors of Christmas. The ornaments varied each year depending on the color she was using but there were a few she kept through the years that were always up on the tree. My mom would buy garland to put around the tree. She saved most our ornaments from school and she would hang it up on the tree. She would buy candy canes and hide it because we would eat them. She would hang the candy canes the day of Christmas. She had a red tree skirt but usually all the gifts would cover it. Finally we would choose someone who grew the most that year and they would get an envelope with money and get to put the star on the tree.
My mom would buy gifts and hide them and usually wrap them when we were sleeping, telling us Santa was there. We would go everyday to the tree to check for new gifts and try to poke the gifts to see what was inside. My mom would tell us “if you keep opening the gifts when you unwrap them they will be empty. We used to get impatient and even shake the boxes to try and figure out what was inside. We would also count our gifts to see who got more and make fun of the one who had the least. My mom would buy a few specific gift-wrapping papers usually to match the color she was using that year.
Towards Christmas the tree would be full and the house fully decorated and ready for Christmas day. Unlike other families we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve, December 24th the family gather together usually at my mothers house because she cooks the best. My mom would prep the food the day before, she would season the pernil with a special sazon that she would make with garlic, oregano, adobo, onions etc and wake up at like five in the morning to start cooking it. Days before she would make pasteles, which was a process we would stay up all night finishing it a few days before Christmas Eve. The pasteles have pork, peppers, onions, sazon, adobo, oregano and other spices inside. For the outside, which is like dough, it has green bananas, dough, a type of potato and other things. To wrap it we used banana leaves, parchment paper and a kitchen string. We would make about forty or more of those and freeze in the freezer. When we were ready to eat them we would boil them for one hour and they were ready to eat.
On the table we would have pernil, lasagna, two types of rice usually white rice and yellow rice with corn or beans, spaghetti, a green salad, potato salad, pastelitos, pasteles and if my mom decided to add a new dish we would have way more. We would all gather around the table and eat as a family. We had a lot of time to kill because we all waited up until midnight to open our gifts together. We watched Christmas movies together, cracked jokes, talked about what gifts we wanted and what gifts we thought we had under the tree. Everyone who came over would usually bring his or her gifts from home.
I can still remember the excitement I felt when I would open up those gifts and get what I asked Santa for. Until one day I realized Santa was really my mom. In my family Christmas is a time were the family comes together and gets to enjoy watching the children open up their gifts with happiness. I hope to pass this tradition on to my daughter so she can understand how important it is to cherish and value family traditions especially the holidays, like Christmas.
