The title comes from a song by Calexico & Iron and Wine (excellent album if I do say so myself). It’s in reference to my grandmother who was less than 16 years old, probably more like 13 or 14 when she had the first of her 14 children. The first died of meningitis, the second was my mother. I was named after my grandfather who was my great-grandfather’s brother — yes, my grandmother’s uncle.
You would think that having that many children would keep her from being anything other than a mother but that wasn’t the case. In fact, my mother and many of her siblings were raised by my great-grandmother because my grandmother was to young to raise children, or something like that.
My grandfather was a well respected tailor an a man with a temper.
Throughout the 20th century Honduras and most of Latin America was ruled by conservative dictatorships. My family was not very politically active at first but the more repressive the governments became the more unavoidable it was to become involved.
My grandfather, Angel Silvio Flores, became a vociferous opponent of the dictatorship of Tiburcio Carias. He went so far as to proclaim himself a colonel and created a small resistance army. In 1947, a local official shot and dragged his body through the streets of La Esperanza to make an example of him. That was one year after my mother was born.
On this last visit to Honduras I met a man who witnessed the murder of my grandfather as a child. He went on the become a law school classmate of my father’s (I’ll get to that later on) and a friend of the family. My mother and I ran into him near his home and he told us that he always treasured having known my grandfather as a boy and that he had a been a lifelong inspiration for him because he was a man of uncommon strength and principle.
It was the first time I had met anyone outside of my family that knew him and was incredibly proud at hearing his words. My mother was close to tears.