Lupita

I was almost Milagro.

Catholicism is something so intertwined in the Mexican identity. Milagros hang above every door. Cruzes de oro dangle on every neck. Ojalá nods to the Moors. Quite literally meaning, “if God’s willing.”

In part because the Spaniards replaced the faith of a very deeply religious community with their own idols.

A lot of the ways my family felt connected to Mexico was by going to Spanish mass in Lincoln Park. Lined in gold, rose windows. The organ vibrated through everything. Hundreds of abuelitas, señores, y niños crowded the pews and filed a line to the Eucharist while my parents and I stayed behind.

I’d kick my pink leather shoes, longing to climb into the gothic balcony and watch the tubes sway. When mass would end, we would funnel out to a garden where carne asada y frijoles would be served. A bell would hand me a Powerpuff Girl popsicle. The trees felt infinite.

Until one day, we began to go to la Santa Maria, Estrella de la Mar. Or as I learned in Sunday school: Mary, Star of Sea.

I didn’t think much of it other than I could finally understand what the off-key troubadour was saying, and us kids would go to a room, read, and fight over who got to bring Eucharist.

After mass on Sundays, my brother and I would sit at the catholic school’s little desks with unblinking wide eyed adults and reading bible passages. The room hadn’t been updated since the 70s and it showed.

On the rinky-dink overhead projector, the minister placed a film sheet on the light.

4. Honor thy father and mother.

Being a child is wildly unfair. Everything is unknown. Often, children are seen as “pests” to be sprayed and controlled. Forgotten until they make a scene in a structure of control that is “child care.” Add in the systematic problems of gender, race, and queerness, it becomes increasingly more unfair.

                  “What do you mean by honor?” I raised my hand.

                                   “To unconditionally listen,” the minister replied.

When you learn the golden rule and the ten commandments at the same time, you begin to question, “Why should I respect someone who doesn’t honor me?”

---

My brother and I lagged behind our parents. My mother’s hair danced in time to her heels, into the office that smelled of musk and powdered creamer. A smell I adored from the mall coffee machines, my family would indulge window shopping.

Linda, a very unblinking woman, guided us to her office. A Mayan Calendar greeted us, and when my dad joked about it she stated she had no clue what any of it meant, except that the world was ending in two years.

We sat on a bench that felt like a pew while Linda sat on a green assembly chair. I stared at each ring of the calendar. Beyond those facts, I can’t recall much about the conversation. Words blurred into just sounds until Linda knelt to look me in the eye.

When you’re small, it’s not common that an adult fully sees you. But when an adult bends down to your level and truly looks into your soul, their intent sticks with you.

My Tío Juan would do this when explaining the Buddha’s practices in his pristine International style palace. Patiently explaining to me where he acquired his Mondrian. That “Kung Fu Fighting” was written by Carl Douglas, not Jack Black, and that it was my grumpy Tío Alex’s favorite song growing up.

Linda was not like that.

Her eyes were a bright cerulean with green freckles. I searched deep inside them and felt a pit in my stomach. Wandering to her hair, fried from bleach and a pinned smile. Her mouth became jagged;

                                    “You believe in Jesus, don’t you?”

At that moment, a large book club contorted into something I couldn’t put my finger on. I didn’t want to believe in whatever lay behind her eyes.

The next week, the minister handed us a textbook and we read the story behind a figure I’ve seen my whole life.

Juan Diego climbed a mountain and encountered Her. He spoke of H-E-R but was disbelieved. She told him to take these roses to show faith in G-O-D and when he showed it to the townspeople, the roses stained his cloak with Her image.

“What do you think of the virgin “Gua…War-Guh…Da— uh whatever her name is?” stumbled the Minster.

“In this text God wants us to not use his name in vain, instead use gosh or something,” spoke a girl with a leather choker and chipped purple nails. I remained fixated on the familiar image. Huffy at ‘Guada- whatever her name is’

In Hermosillo, there was a yellow shrine not far from my mother’s indigo home, lined with crushed glass. Candle lit, next to the corner store with her cartoon face on weaved plastic striped bags.

The teenage boys would practice skateboarding on the uneven steps.

During an earthquake, my brother and I grabbed our Lupita as we ran out to my family’s emergency spot by the neighborhood jacuzzi. Surrounded by wild rabbits.

We picked Her up on the side of the road on the way back to the US. She was placed on our staircase on a mahogany half-circle table. Seven-year-old me, would stare at the wood carving in the shiny summers. Memorizing the contour of every star and spine. The softness of her cheeks. The strength of the cherubs. How the dust would mingle above her.

My cousin Lizzie bowed to her in a crinoline peach gown. Teeming with hope as she became a “woman.”

Looking for a miracle, thousands of people crawl on their hands and knees for miles. 7,448 feet uphill. To Her.

Yet the Minister couldn’t even bother to learn how to pronounce Her name.

Linda lingered in the back of the room. My seven-year-old lips tasted blood and my head ached for hours.

When my brother and I had our first communion, our last name morphed to a Star Wars character. The same anger billowed in my chest. I walked down the aisle of pews to get Linda’s stare off my back.

“It’s LAY-VA,” I spat when I received the stale cracker.

Lupita disappeared. My mother gave Her away the summer we lived in an RV by the sea.

Lizzie no longer attends the church she could not hitch.

When we landed somewhere, the house was no longer as colorful as it once was. Coldness spread. The framed eclipse no longer sang me to sleep. Nor did the sunflowers greet me in the kitchen.

Bland and “Modern” to match the red mirror the former owner left behind.

I don’t consider myself Catholic. I don’t like the history, nor how people interpret his words into hate. However, a string of azure hangs off my rearview mirror. Two milagros hang above my hallway arches. When I close my eyes, the pattern of indigo stars remains carved on my eyelids.

She is the only idol, I trust.

A saint who bears the hope of people, reflecting the faith the Spaniards could never take away.

Tonantzin.