{"id":107936,"date":"2025-12-24T18:02:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T18:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/107936\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T18:02:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T18:02:15","slug":"aging-grandparents-first-visit-from-mexico-was-the-greatest-christmas-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/107936\/","title":{"rendered":"Aging grandparents’ first visit from Mexico was the greatest Christmas gift"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mexican<\/a>Licha, 86, and Pancho, 83, view the Grand Canyon for the first time during their Christmas visit. (Photo by Mia Armstrong-L\u00f3pez\/Z\u00f3calo Public Square)<\/p>\n

As my husband drove back from an evening visit to the botanical gardens with his grandparents, he pointed out the stars. Phoenix isn\u2019t known to be a dark-sky city, but here the stars sparkled much brighter than what his grandparents were used to at their home in Puebla, a two-hour drive from Mexico City.<\/p>\n

It was the first night Pancho, 83, and Licha, 86, had spent outside Mexico, and the only word they could find to describe the experience was \u201csue\u00f1o,\u201d dream. \u201cTodo esto es un sue\u00f1o,\u201d they repeated as we pushed them in wheelchairs around the gardens, lit up for the holidays with luminarias lining the dirt paths that weaved around towering saguaros. \u201cNi so\u00f1ado que \u00edbamos a estar aqu\u00ed.\u201d This is all a dream. We never dreamed we\u2019d be here.<\/p>\n

Later, in the car, Licha gazed out at the stars, eyes fixed on the night sky. It was then that she whispered, almost to herself, something I\u2019ll never forget: \u201c\u00bfD\u00f3nde estar\u00e1 la abuelita?\u201d I knew immediately she was asking about my maternal grandmother, Sue: Where might she be? \u201cAh\u00ed arriba est\u00e1,\u201d I told her. \u201cNos est\u00e1 cuidando.\u201d She\u2019s up there, taking care of us.<\/p>\n

Sue died two weeks before Licha and Pancho boarded a flight to the U.S. It was a Saturday in mid-November, and I was getting ready to write something to say the next day at my paternal grandfather\u2019s memorial service. He had died in late October after a short battle with a relentless infection. When I got the news Sue had passed, it was both devastating and merciful. Devastating in the way many deaths are \u2014 there wasn\u2019t enough time. Merciful in the way many people who have watched a loved one die will understand \u2014 there\u2019s a point at which witnessing suffering makes you pray for relief.<\/p>\n

I sat on the floor and called my husband. \u201cI\u2019m so sorry. I love you,\u201d he told me. And then: \u201cI\u2019m going to call my abuelita.\u201d<\/p>\n

My husband and I had dreamt of our grandparents meeting again for a long time \u2014 especially Licha and Sue. They met only once, during the weekend of our wedding outside Mexico City three years ago, where they danced together and communicated via gestures and smiles. Despite not speaking a word of each other\u2019s language, they sent gifts back and forth and asked about each other on nearly every visit and phone call we made to their respective homes. <\/p>\n

Toward the end, Sue couldn\u2019t talk \u2014 but when I mentioned Licha and Pancho would come soon, she opened her eyes wider, and I could tell she understood. When we told her the depths of Sue\u2019s discomfort, Licha began praying for the same relief I had. Later, my mom would tell my husband that she thought Sue was waiting for Licha, holding on \u2014 perhaps until, I think, she received the unspoken message that it was OK to let go.<\/p>\n

Licha and Pancho were supposed to have spent last Christmas in the U.S. For much of 2024, my husband and I jumped through bureaucratic hoops to get them their passports and visas, consumed with and enamored by the possibility of creating a binational Christmas<\/a>. Bringing our two families together again, we were sure, would be messy, and complex, and so beautiful. The multicultural texture, idiosyncrasy, and curiosity that Ricardo and I experience in each other\u2019s families has made our lives rich. We wanted to pull our relatives into it as well.<\/p>\n

Our binational Christmas miracle didn\u2019t come true last year \u2014 three days before Ricardo, Pancho, Licha, and I were supposed to fly from Mexico City to Phoenix, a Rube Goldberg-machine-like chain of bureaucratic visa complications useless to recount here made the trip impossible. Instead, Ricardo, Licha, and Pancho spent Christmas in Mexico, and I spent the holiday in Arizona. Later, we brought to Puebla the gifts my family had placed under the tree for Licha and Pancho: a scarf, a hat, a calendar, socks, a necklace, Christmas ornaments, and a small ceramic bust of the Virgin Mary that had belonged to my great-grandmother.<\/p>\n

We were eager to reschedule the visit. But a couple months later, Pancho was hospitalized due to what were eventually identified as recurring problems with his heart. By the time he made it out of the hospital, the idea of bringing them to visit the U.S. felt like a nostalgic relic of what might have been, not a feasible future prospect.<\/p>\n

The year continued on, and then Ricardo got the news we had been waiting years for: His green card had been approved. We moved to the U.S. and began our life here \u2014 a privilege we felt immense gratitude for, yet one that still carries a weight. It\u2019s always painful to leave half of your life behind, even if you\u2019re one of the lucky few who can return to knock on its door.<\/p>\n

Pancho continued to get better, and then, several months after his hospitalization, the doctor cleared him for travel. We asked Licha and Pancho if they were interested in coming to visit the U.S. this year, to see the life we had started building. As we spoke on the phone, I thought of the small Sears-branded roller bag they had bought in anticipation of last year\u2019s trip, of the photos I had taken of them celebrating with their visas. Their answer was yes.<\/p>\n

In the weeks leading up to the visit, I was anxious. I worried about their health: Losing my paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother in such quick succession had paralyzed me with the feeling that all of this was too fragile. I worried, too, about their needs and desires: Would they be comfortable, would they feel welcome?<\/p>\n

As I tangled myself in worry, I remembered my late grandfather preparing to meet Licha and Pancho last year, wondering if they might like a puzzle with an Arizona landmark as a keepsake. He and Sue had been so excited about the hoped-for visit \u2014 carrying it out felt like a way to honor their vision of our shared family. \u00a0<\/p>\n

During the eight days they spent here, Pancho and Licha carried that vision, and in doing so, they gave me the greatest gift I could receive. Accompanied by an aunt who helped them navigate the journey, they spent days taking in the sun on our back porch as we worked, and we drove around city landmarks in the evening. We brought them to Sedona, the Grand Canyon, to touch snow for the first time. We ate tacos de lengua and pho, huevos con tortilla and chili. We played loter\u00eda, and they slept in my great grandmother\u2019s home; when there was no translator around, they spoke to my parents using Google Translate. They had lunch with my paternal grandmother, the last grandparent I have, and helped decorate my family\u2019s tree. It was messy, complex, and beautiful.<\/p>\n

As the trip came to a close, my mother, who was cleaning out Sue\u2019s home, gave Licha a few Christmas gifts she felt my grandmother would have wanted Licha to have: glass ornaments in the shape of angels, a beaded white skirt-set she must have worn to an awards ceremony of some sort, and a long red coat \u2014 Sue\u2019s signature color. The coat fit Licha perfectly, and when I saw her in it, I missed Sue a little less. It wasn\u2019t the binational Christmas we had once imagined, but it was still a miracle. \u00a0<\/p>\n

As we drove to the airport on their final day, I told Licha how grateful I was to them for coming\u2014to leave your country for the first time at 86 to go to a place completely unfamiliar is a gift of bravery and love. \u201cSi Dios nos permite,\u201d she told me, \u201cen cinco a\u00f1os vendremos de nuevo.\u201d God willing, we\u2019ll come again in five years. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Mia Armstrong-L\u00f3pez is a writer based in Phoenix. She is the managing editor of ASU Media Enterprise<\/a>.\u00a0This essay was written for Z\u00f3calo Public Square<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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