a poor state of mind

I don’t have any pictures of my grandmother and I together. But if I did, they would look just like this one. I was always by my grandmother’s side and she always looked just like that when we were outside – something on her head and wearing a black coat. A little lock of gray hair sticking out. Weary, tired but almost always smiling.

My grandmother, Theresa De Jesus Ontiveros or Gamma, as I called her, was a great woman. An accomplished concert pianist. Wonderfully artistic. Mother of 5 children and an immigrant from Mexico.  She was already old when I was born and on a fixed income. I lived with her mostly in a tiny little place. We didn’t have much. She sewed most of my clothes and those she didn’t she was more than eager to hem, patch or mend. She didn’t care what colors I was wearing. She’d safety pin my red gloves into the sleeves of my blue coat and make me wear a green knitted cap with a purple scarf – oh yes, in Los Angeles where the weather rarely drops below 70 degrees. HOT mess – literally.  All she cared about was that I was safe, healthy, happy and clean.

She took great pride in our community and environment. Everything was neatly put away. Clothes, though rarely new, were always clean and pressed. We’d take long walks to the park to feed the pigeons. She’d often pick up little bits of trash to throw away along the way. In fact, she was always cleaning something. Always. She taught me to take care of my belongings… even the things I no longer wanted or liked. She’d tell me that if I took care of what I had, I would be blessed with more later. And from that, I learned to appreciate the little things.

As I took Cooper for a walk to the park next door to my place tonight, I couldn’t help but wonder where that pride of ownership and community has gone. I’m frustrated with the increase in the immigrant population here. I’m working hard to keep it in check so that it doesn’t become true prejudice, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult.

As I look around the park I see plenty of people out with their children. It’s evening and there aren’t nearly as many people out as there were earlier in the day, but still quite a few. Almost no one is speaking English. There’s trash everywhere. My clean and pristine park looks like a dump. Which reminds me of the family of immigrants I saw digging through my complex trash dumpster on the way over to the park. It’s one thing to need to dig through the trash and quite another to just leave it laying all around the ground for someone else to clean up.

When did poor and dirty become synonymous? How do you come to another country (or even across town) in hopes of a better life and trash it up along the way? Why can’t you be poor and still be proud?

My grandmother was.