Memories of Mexico

Mexico: a place I had never been before, yet I was so familiar with. A place filled with memories and stories that I grew up hearing about. I always thought that I would only know it through the stories I heard from family; however, over the last school break, I got the privilege of visiting this place that I had heard so much about, and that was incredibly special to everyone in my family. 

Both sides of my family grew up in a small town in the state of Michoacán, Mexico. This was not my first trip to Mexico, however, every other trip I had taken had been to popular vacation spots. This was my first time getting to see a true, authentic small town that was filled with history, which directly impacted many generations in my family. I had low expectations for this trip, mostly because I did not know what to expect. Neither of my parents had been back in more than 20 years, and my mom always told me that she had always dreamed about bringing me to see the place where she grew up. So I was mostly happy that she finally got to live her dream. 

The journey there consisted of a seven-hour airplane ride to the nearest major city, and after that, we took a rental car the rest of the way there which was about a two hour drive. Immediately upon arriving, my dad rolled down the windows of the car, and we could instantly feel the warm weather welcome us. The main reason for this trip was for my dad to get my late grandfather’s house in order.

That was our first stop; my grandfather’s house was located in the center of town, so I got to see a lot of the town on our way there. When we got there and went inside, my mom said that it was almost like time had stopped. The house had been untouched for several years. As we were all looking around, my dad got a phone call, and to me it was like a sign from my grandfather. 

Right after he passed away almost a year ago we would often get phone calls from doctors who weren’t yet informed of his passing, so we were used to  it. However after a couple months the frequency of the phone calls decreased significantly. So the fact that this was the first time in a while we had gotten one of those calls and we were standing in one of the only places that was left his memory is more than just a coincidence to me. This moment will forever be something that I will hold on to and is by far my favorite memory of that trip.