I wrote this a while ago. Every time I think of it, I can't help but think of how great a story it is. I also can't help but think how lucky we are to be here, and how lucky we are to have such a great story as part of our own family history. I call this story, "Exodus". Tell me what you think....Everyone knows the story of Moses. Not everyone, perhaps. But you get the point-- it's a well known story. There's one story in our own family's history that rings a bell just like that one from the Old Testament.
Gramma Connie comes from a town in Mexico, in the state of Michoacan to be exact. It’s a joke these days for Mexican immigrants, when asked where they are from, to respond "Michigan." Yeah, Michoacan and Michigan are the same name, just in different languages. Anyway, Gramma Connie as she is known to us, is an immigrant.
When she was about 6 years old, I believe, the entire family packed up and moved to the United States. They moved to Santa Paula, where there was lots of farm land, especially in the lemon orchards and the lemon packing warehouses. As far as I know, they lived there for a time, until Gramma Connie was about 10 or 12.
Then one of the older brothers came to pick them up in an old car, and brought them to the place we've all called home for all of our lives: Santa Barbara. Some call it Paradise.
When World War II broke out in Europe and the Pacific, just about every able bodied male between the ages of 18 and 28 was being drafted into service to fight the war. Unfortunately, that included Gramma Connie's older brother. Like most young men of the time, her brother was fully prepared to fight for his adopted country. Our Great-Gramma, however, feared for her son's life. She feared, as do the mothers of all soldiers, that she might outlive one of her own children. She did not want him to go.
Loving and respecting his mother more than his adopted country, he fled. You see, a hero would die for his country, but he'd much rather live for it. That young man, our great-uncle, went back to Mexico to live, and dodged the draft. According to the laws of the US, draft dodging is an offense punishable by prison time. So the man stayed. The war ended. And he stayed. Years went by, and he married, had children, began a career. And he stayed. His family here in the US asked for him to come back. The young man became the man, and he missed his mother and his family here in Paradise. But he stayed.
At the age of 43, not enough to have lived a full life, he was dead. When I heard the story for the first time, it was apparent to me that he died of a broken heart.
Moses was the baby who grew up to become the savior of his people, taking them from the clutches of servitude, through the desert, and into the Promised Land-- the land of milk and honey, and the Jews would call it home. But for all his good intentions, for his faith, for his loyalty and his love for his God and his people, Moses never got to see the land of Israel. Sure, he made it there. But he never got to see it. Because Moses had tapped the rock instead of speaking to it, God was angered and made Moses blind. This happened not long before Moses was to finally reach the Holy Land to see it for the first time-- but for his one transgression, he was never able to see the Paradise he brought others to see.
Just like Moses, Florencio brought Gramma Connie and the rest of the family to a land of promise-- to Santa Barbara, and the promise of the American Dream. But he could not stay here, for though he loved his country enough to die for it, that he disobeyed the laws one time landed him in unfavorable terms with this country. Though he made it here and brought his own people with him, his family, he could never see that promise made real. And he died of a broken heart before being allowed to come back.
It is a story of sadness and heartbreak. It is also a story that too few of our family have heard. We don't acknowledge Florencio and what he did-- that his actions alone made it possible for us to partake in this land of promise, this land of the American Dream. It is our own version of Exodus. One book in a volume of our own great stories.
