The Things We Inherit

"I wasn't even that fat. I remember feeling like I was morbidly obese or something. I was so cute. Right?”

She flipped the photo around towards me with the motion of turning a car key. A radiant little girl with a bowl cut. She wore a striped tank top. I had already looked through the stack of photos before she got there. The thought of fat or skinny hadn’t crossed my mind. Just the compassion you feel when you see someone as an innocent child, and whose faults you experience on a daily basis as an adult.

“Yeah, mom. Let me know if you see a silver belt buckle.”

“Okay,” she said, even though she was still sidetracked with photos. “Look! When we met Julio Cesar in Culiacan. This was like in the late 80s.”

“No, Mom. That was around 2000.”

“No way that was 2000. I wasn’t all fat yet. Like I am now. Look at how Julio Cesar was looking at me.”

Mexico’s biggest sport is Boxing. The most legendary Mexican boxer of all time is Julio Cesar Chavez. His name carries weight like Mike Tyson. And there he was in some Tommy Hilfiger overalls sandwiched by my mom and Grandpa Tony. His arm sneakily around my mom’s waist. Julio Cesar Chavez being the shortest out of the three.

“No, mom. I remember this. It was the time we visited auntie. You guys went to visit my great grandparent’s grave, but I stayed back at auntie’s house playing Nintendo 64. When everyone got back, you told me you ran into Julio Cesar Chavez. I thought you guys were just trying to make me feel bad about not going until you got the rolls developed,” I said, still disappointed.

“Oh,” she said, slowly believing me. “I looked good.” After a long pause, she said, “here’s a belt buckle.”

“That’s the one he used to wear every day,” I said, as I rubbed my thumb over the engraved cowboy riding a bull. It was a cheap brass buckle. “It’s cool, but that’s not the silver one I gave him for his birthday. I never saw it again after I gave it to him. What if he sold it,” I said, laughing.

I was still thinking about what my mom said. It made sense now. I always felt fat and insecure as a kid. As an adult, I remember looking back at a picture of myself in 8th grade and being shocked. Back in 8th grade the insecurity was crippling. Desperate to be liked by girls but feeling completely unlikable. I was just a big kid going through puberty. It’s surprising when the image you had of yourself gets broken. I was a good looking kid.

“Look. His green card. He was a baby in this picture. I think he was like 17,” my mom said, as we kept looking through drawers.

I had betrayed myself. 8th grade me. I told myself I wouldn’t treat myself like that anymore, if I could help it. To hear that self-deprecating voice in my head manifest itself from my mother’s tongue made me want to make sure my future kids never felt that way.

“He never even wore these socks. And here’s a brand new pack of underwear I gave him for Christmas.”

I’m getting to an age where I’m starting to think about having kids. For a while, I thought it was purely biological. When a human being gets to a certain age, the animal part of the brain tells us that we must procreate. Hormones and shit right? But now I’m thinking maybe it’s a desire to heal.

“Jesus. This is his wrist band from the hospital,” she said, as she held up the broken plastic ring with black spots on it. 50 year old dried blood.

“His brother told me about that,” I said.

A desire to heal myself and my ancestors. Heal from the things we put away in the corners of our mind only to be found by our children. Where is the original sin? Where do these traumas originate? Maybe if I can heal myself and not pass these things down, I can heal my mom and grandfather’s spirit too.

“Here’s the Ray Bans you got him. He never wore them; they were too nice. He wore those knockoffs every day instead,” my mom said, trying the aviators on.

“Same thing with that watch I bought him. He never wore it,” I said holding up a brand new Citizen watch. A nice watch, but it’s not a Rolex or anything. My grandfather never felt worthy of gifts.

He told me a story a couple of months ago. He was very talkative. He talked to me in a way he never had before. The doctors had recently stopped chemotherapy and he knew the end was near.

He told me about being at his father’s house. Seeing his father playing catch with his younger cousin. In a fit of emotion and jealousy he told his father I know you don’t love me, but I love you anyways. His father paused for a second and kept playing catch. His one chance to swallow his pride and profess his love for his son. He just couldn’t do it.

“Look what I found!”

My mom held up the silver belt buckle. Shining as bright as the day I bought it. It was in a box with some silver coins and a little black book. The black book was filled with his unmistakable handwriting. Cursive from another time. There were other papers tucked into the pages of the books pages.

I unfolded one of the yellowing papers carefully. It was a certificate for a stock in an oil company issued July, 5th 1942. The day my grandfather was born. It was signed by my great grandfather.

“Damn. You think it’s worth anything?”

“Let’s google it.”