And there we sat, the four of us – the tall, lanky guy – a hat covering his stubbled face – looked like a typical old West Texas fella – cigarette stained fingertips and squinty blue eyes. You knew he wouldn’t talk a lot. A tall, elegant woman with a Spanish accent – the light playing over her hennaed hair and cafe con leche skin – gracefully looking about and talking to the septuagenarian woman sitting next to her whose blue eyes matched the blue eyes of the lanky West Texas fellow. And next to her sat a young beautiful woman with alabaster skin and a brilliant smile. An odd group to say the least.
But our oddity is merely skin deep – if you peel away the tan skin you find a nefertiti-necked woman who almost 50 years ago crawled into the bosom of a West Texas family during a cold Christmas and became the “little” sister for the paler skinned blue-eyed elderly lady. They have shared grief, loss, lots and lots of laughter and countless families get-togethers during this five decade-long journey.
Mary Elizabeth, Maria and Carol
Her son and my nephew, Rajib Ramon Bhattacharjee, was walking across the stage at Junell Center at San Angelo State University this night to receive his Master’s Degree. And part of his family was there to celebrate his special night.
I noticed a lady looking at us and I saw us in her eyes. Different skin tones, different ages, just different. And yet we seemed so together with one another. And that is because we are tied together with bonds that are bone deep.
In June 1975, the Language and Culture Center at the University of Houston had its first class—24 Venezuelans and I was one of two teachers. Maria was my student and I asked to spend Christmas that December with my family in West Texas.
Maria joined our family that cold West Texas Christmas because she asked my parents to be her “Texas parents” and they said yes and put her photo on the wall next to their other five daughters, Carol Mae, Mary Elizabeth, Sarah Dean, Billie Louise and Elberta. And that was that. So when Maria met and married Kumar Bhattacharjee from Bengladesh and they had two sons, Atanu Alejandro and Rajib Ramon, our West Texas family became a bit Venezuelan and Bengalee and those boys became Americans with cousins from three continents (including West Texas).
And that that happened is because of my mother and father – especially my mother. She never refused anyone asking for refuge and they became “family”. (Granted, I have spent some time in therapy learning about healthy boundaries!)
But there are times for boundaries and times for open arms. And Lucy Mae Stokes Archer was a wonderful example of open arms. And for fifty years there are variegated ties that bind together our Bengalee, Venezuelan and Texan families.
Little did we know all those years ago where that “coming of Christ” would lead.
