Mi Tia/My Aunt

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couple of nights ago I was thinking about my late tia (aunt) Migdalia, who was married to my dad’s brother. I am not sure what, in particular, triggered my memories of her but, I could envision her so vividly in my mind. I recalled 0ne memory in particular, one that I think about every so often. 

My cousin got married in the late 90s and the night before the wedding we were all hanging out after the rehearsal dinner. There was a buzz in the room as different pockets of family and friends were talking among themselves. Eventually, my tia got up to make a speech. During her remarks, she began to talk about how she grew up in a basement apartment in the Bronx, NY. My dad moved with his parents and two brothers from Puerto Rico to the Bronx and that is where my tia and tio met. 

I did not know my tia well until we left Puerto Rico. When my parents, brothers, and I first moved to Michigan, we lived at my tia and tio’s house with my two cousins. I have been blessed with strong women in my life and my tia was definitely one of them. I remember her telling me that women can do anything they want and we were just as good as men. She said it with such conviction, my 12-year-old self believed her. 

As I got older and got to know her better, there was something that always laid beneath. In spite of her beautiful family, her career, accomplishments, there was always an undercurrent. It was at that rehearsal dinner that I understood what it was. My beautiful tia lived in that proverbial basement, she had moved away from it many years prior, but her mind never left. From the outside in, it seemed to me, that basement kept her at the perimeter of unbridled joy. 

Mi tia was small in size but grand in personality and laugh. She spoke her mind unapologetically. She encouraged the women she loved to live their fullest lives and loved to dance. To me, she was so much more than that Bronx basement. Today, I make sure to tell the women I love, to live their most amazing and grandest lives, as my tia told me.