HOME

I have been subscribed to Ali Edwards Mostly Story Kits and Story Stamps since it's inception.  I have every single kit (about 38  now) and have only just started to use them.

The theme this month is HOME.  It's a great theme for me as my feelings about "home" are all over the map.

All my life I dreamed of having an "American" life.  To me it meant my parents would purchase a home and life there their entire life.  I have no idea why I considered that to be an "American" life but I did.  I wanted the same for myself, I wanted to purchase a home and live there all my life.  Raise my children there, they raise their children visiting there....  It just always meant so much to me.  But it never happened.  

When we arrived in the United States in 1966 my parents were 34 years old with three children, no marketable skills and speaking only Spanish (my mother never did learn to speak English though my dad was able to speak and understand some).  We went to live in New Jersey.  I remember our first house in this country.  It was really big (or at least that is the way I remember it) and we ALL lived there.  My parents, my siblings, my aunts and uncles and cousins.. my grandparents.  ALOT of people in one house.  Everyone worked to pay the bills.  After visiting Cuba for past 20 years I realize that Cuban families really do all love to live together.

From there we went to live in a flat in Elizabeth New Jersey.  I remember my aunt and uncle and cousins lived upstairs in the flat upstairs.   There were only two flats in the building that I can remember.  There was a little mom and pop grocery store downstairs where we would buy candy.  I can remember my father pouring salt on the stairs that led out to the sidewalk because they would ice over in the winter.  I don't know how long we lived there but I know it wasn't too long.

From there my next memory is all of us (and I mean ALL of us) traveling in a caravan to Florida where my Uncle Isidoro had purchased a house.  I remember sleeping on the floor (where your feet go) all the way to Florida in a brown and beige station wagon, singing Raindrops Are Falling on My Head for my dad who loved it.

My uncle had bought a house in Hialeah (6161 West 14th Court) for everyone to live in until we could all find our own way out.  I don't remember when we arrived but I do remember being SO excited.  My brothers, cousins and I started running around the yard like crazy people whooping and hollering that we were HOME!

A very short time after we moved into that house, my aunt Clara and her baby boy were hit by a truck while riding Albert's bike and were both killed.  It was 1970 - I was 9 years old and I remember it like it was yesterday.  What an awful day.  My uncle and father went to the site of the accident and came back to tell everyone else.  From that day forward none of us were ever allowed to have a bicycle.

My parents, my siblings and I moved from that house to a house that had french doors in all the rooms.  Don't know where it was - just that we were not there very long.  Eventually we moved to 4814 East 8th Court.  It was 1973.  My best friend lived across the street and my "crush" lived in the apartments behind my house!  Couldn't get better than that.

Wow..... there were so many more after that.  I love these story kits.  It makes you think about your life and inspires you to write your stories.