A Mother's Day at Grand-grand Mother's House

 Mother's Day is a special holiday in Mexico. It is celebrated on May 10th and in some Latin American countries too, by the way, mexican traditions are most matriarch alike, since early pre Hispanic period research has shown. In my family we celebrate this holiday in a special way at grand-grand mother's house. Her name was Maria Morales Espiritu, alias ``abuelita Mary'' inside the family group. Maria had many sons and daughters, such as twenty, I should remember, and every one of them had five or eight children, and so on until the third generation which my mother belongs to.

Due to the huge amount of descendants of my family tree, the party was full populated of aunts, uncles  and cousins for four generations. Meals for this special day was varied, there were typical dishes from Guerrero State cuisine, such as green, red or white pozole, ashed tamales, green, red or black mole, violet and white tortillas, relleno (baby pork oven, filled with vegetables), fresh fruit spring water and more dishes. The meals were prepared by all the aunts and my mother, all they learned the art of typical food preparation from the grand-grand mother, It was such as a very close family ritual, all the recipes were hidden to guess people, like a top secret, which only could be reveal to family members and selected close friends. Maria celebrated that day full of joy, her husband Casiano kept always at her side, just looking, smiling and holding us, all his grand sons and daughters.

That day was a long long day party, It began since the morning and conclude until third or fourth hour of the next day. All family members took two servings, and all of us talked about projects, to know more about family members and introducing new members of the family every year. In 1987 was the last year of this celebration, Maria had died. She was the family glue alike, since that time there is no more huge mother's day holiday in my family, but in my heart I remember those days so much, they were stuck in my person, such as a tattoo in my skin soul.

Figure 1: My grand grand mother Maria Morales Espiritu.