Life is Measured in More than Years: Marcelino and Concepción

Green Card

 Marcelino and I are the same age, in years anyway. But life is measured in more than years. Life's experiences are a much more accurate measure. I am the privileged gringo who has gone to college, found a satisfying job in public education, and retired with an adequate pension to live comfortably and travel extensively in my "golden years". My two children have had the same opportunities that I had, and our family is a tightly knit unit that gets together often and participates in each other's lives. We have financial stability and our basic needs are well met. Relatively speaking, we have good lives and promising futures.

Remembering 

Marcelino's life, and his wife's, Concepción, have been down a much more rugged path, with far fewer opportunities and no retirement pension in their "golden years". Their lives have been rich in many ways, but they have faced many hardships and experienced more than their share of suffering and sadness. The seventy-seven years that Marcelino has lived are very different than the seventy-seven that I have lived. 

In the mid seventies he got a work visa to go to the States and ended up there for a few years working in construction and, most rewardingly, as a baker. When he returned to Oaxaca, he brought his new profession with him. He married his wife, Concepción, and they had two children, and they became the town "panaderos" (bakers). Three times a week they fired up their wood-fired clay oven and made sweet breads which they sold door to door in the pueblo.

Concepción

The pueblo of Tanivet, like many pueblos in Mexico, is inhabited primarily by women. As soon as they are old enough (late teens or early twenties), the men migrate to the States to work, just as Marcelino did. This was the case with Concepción and Marcelino's son. But unlike Marcelino, their son did not come back. Since he did not have papers, he could not return stateside if he left. During the time that I knew them, Marcelino and Concepción suffered much due to the absence of their son. They had no chance of getting a visa to the US with their job as itinerant bakers, nor could they ever afford it. Their son mentioned several times he was going to try to get back home, but it never happened. After many years, Marcelino and Concepción lost hope of ever seeing their son and grandson. 

The separation of family members is a source of much pain and sadness. That imaginary line that separates the US from Mexico, also separates loved ones, parents from children, husbands from wives. Most Americans can cross "la Linea" without much problem. We are welcomed in Mexico and no visa is necessary. But for many good people like Marcelino and Concepción, crossing over is almost impossible or it is very dangerous and expensive. So many people live without the opportunity to see their spouses, children and grandchildren. And this is the big difference between my seventy-seven years of life and Marcelino's. Pain and sadness wear heavily on a person.

Tanivet is an hour and a half from where I live. I have not gone back to see my friends there for a while, but I hope to do so soon. It would be such a joy to find Marcelino and Concepción reunited with their son and his family and enjoying life together in their "golden years". I have that opportunity, why not them?