RIP Abuelita

El Jay's Abuelita passed away today. She was 90-years old and had suffered from Alzheimer for as long as I knew her. I can honestly say that I loved my x-mother-in-law. She was a beautiful person inside and out. She only had an elementary school education and never learned to speak English, but she was intelligent and hardworking. Back when Avon didn't make catalogs in Spanish, she still managed to be one of the top Avon sales people in he Los Angeles area.

I am grateful that becaus eof her alzheimers she didn't understand what was going on with her sons. I think she would have been appalled if she had known that at least one is now a registered sex offender. She didn't deserve the terrible care another son gave her, as he slowly killed her by neglect. She didn't deserve having her son steal the money  she worked so hard to save. I am glad she was in good hands during the last two years.

For awhile, while we lived next door to her, at night i would dream that  her spirit would come to me and take my hand and say, "Come with me. Come meet my friends. Come dance with us." And together we would travel and she would joyously greet her first husband, Ignosio and they would dance. She was always so radiant and happy in these journey's we took together. I always loved that at these times there was no language barrier.

One night I asked her why she always came and got me to travel with her  in our dreams and she said that she knew I would take good care of her and always make sure she came home. My reply was that she could stay and dance in the stars with Ignasio, that she didn't need to come back to Earth. But no, she told me, it wasn't time for her yet.

Last night I dreamed that same dream again, after so many years, and this morning she was gone.

RIP Josefina Perea Reyes.

 This is the last foto of took of Abuelita. Somewhere in storage I do have  a few pictures of her when she was young.

 I edited this to add the photo we took at Abuelita's celebration of life. I wanted El Jay to have a picture with his dad's family. They insisted I be in the photo too. We used his little camera and I used photo-shop to improve it. I didn't crop the dog out, because he is part of the family too. From back left--me, Pat, Marco, Sabrina, Dante. Front row, El Jay Rey, and Tio Jose (Joe). Joe is El Jay's dad's middle biological brother. SUB was the youngest brother. In addition to his two bio brothers, he had two older half brothers. One from his dad's first marriage and one from Abuelita's first marriage. El Jay has two full Reyes cousins only, Marco and Sabrina (Sabrina is married to Dante and they are expecting their first baby in May.) El Jay also has one half cousin through Abuelita's oldest son and that cousin, Stevie, has a son who is 7 or 8 months younger than El Jay, named Nathan. Plus, several half cousins through SUBS Dad's oldest son--but we have never met them. I think it is sad that he has family on his dad's side that he will never know.