B0061QB04W EBOK (55 page)

In 2006, my first novel,
Across a Hundred Mountains,
was published. The following year it received an American Book Award. In 2009,
Dancing with Butterflies,
my second novel, followed.

In 2008, I received my MFA in creative writing, and unfortunately I’m still the only person in my family to have graduated from college. But between us, my siblings and I have thirteen children. I know that soon I won’t be the only college graduate in the family.

Diana and I are still close. I have known her for half my life. She has seen me become the woman I am today—a wife, mother, and writer.

Carlos, Mago, Betty, and Leonardo are doing well, trying to live as best they can. Ultimately, that is all we can do.

My relationship with Mila is better than it has ever been. She remained
by my father’s side up until the day he died. My father’s illness brought us closer together. She also managed to repair her relationship with her children as well, and they are very close. My children call her “Grandma Mila” and like visiting her.

Our relationship with our mother has gotten slightly better, although I have come to accept that there will always be a distance between us. My siblings and I have done our best to forgive her, and accept her for who she is.

As for my father, when he was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2010, there were times when I had to stop outside the door of his house—and sometimes, the threshold of his hospital room—to tell myself that the father I was about to see was not the same father I had come to live with twenty-five years ago. I had to leave my emotions at the door—anger, resentment, bitterness, sadness, frustration, regret—before I could step inside the room and be able to look him in the eye and feel nothing but concern for his well-being.

There were times when my emotions got the better of me, and I would not go to the hospital on those days. It was the same for my siblings. “He’s gotten what he deserved,” we would tell ourselves sometimes. “He chose to drink, and now he has to pay the consequences.” Or we would talk about the way he treated us when we came to the U.S. to live with him. “He’s reaping what he sowed,” we would tell each other on the days we couldn’t bring ourselves to go see him. “Now he wants us around, and when we wanted to be there with him, he pushed us away.”

But there were also days when I would think of the other father—not the violent, alcoholic one, but the one who left for the U.S. because he wanted to give me something better, the one who did not abandon me in Mexico, the one who would tell me about the importance of an education, the one who taught me to dream big. Whenever I thought about that father, I would spend hours researching liver cancer on the Internet and at the public library hoping to keep him alive as long as possible. I would read books about alternative medicine. I would take him to my neighborhood supermarket which sells organic fruits and vegetables, hormone-free meat, and health products such as milk thistle and stevia. I would cook dandelion soup for him, put it in containers, and then drive over to his house to drop them off.

Then, when he had been in the hospital for two months, when I weighed more than he did, when he needed dialysis every other day and his stomach fluids drained, when his only hope of getting out was by receiving not only a new liver but new kidneys as well, my research and my soup were no longer needed. What was needed was my presence. What was needed was my conversation to help him pass the time.

What was needed was something I was struggling to give—my forgiveness.

The day before my thirty-sixth birthday, I found myself at my father’s hospital bed as his life support was turned off. As I held my father’s hand, and my life with him flashed through my mind, I thought about that question I had often asked myself: If I had known what life with my father would be like, would I have still followed him to El Otro Lado?

You made me who I am,
I thought as he took his last breath. And I knew then that the answer to my question was yes.

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I would like to thank my editor at Atria, Malaika Adero, for her unwavering support and her belief in this work even before it was finished, and my agent at Full Circle Literary, Adriana Dominguez, for her invaluable guidance and friendship.

Writing this book was particularly challenging for me in many ways, and I might not have completed it had it not been for the generous support of the following people:

Cory Rayala, my wonderful, supportive husband whose keen insights I could not have done without; my mother-in-law, Carol Ruxton. I thank my lucky stars that I have you in my life. My siblings Mago, Carlos, and Betty, because this is your story as much as it is mine. Thank you for your memories, and for filling in the blanks when I couldn’t remember. My parents, Natalio Grande and Juana Rodriguez, for giving me something to write about. Diana Savas, my mentor, my teacher, my friend, my hero.

My most sincere gratitude to all the people who critiqued the manuscript, in part or in whole. Thank you all for your contributions:

The Macondo Writers Workshop 2011 participants—Ruth Behar, Emmy Pérez, Estela Gonzalez, Marcela Fuentes, Jessica Viada, Rachel Jennings, Nancy Agabian; my Macondo teachers—Manuel Muñoz and Helena María Viramontes; my former writing teachers—Micah Perks, Leonard Chang, and Leslie Schwartz. My writer friends—Laila Lalami, Nicole Mones, Michele Serros, Thelma Reyna, Patricia Santana, Melinda Palacio, Sarah Cortez, Zulmara Cline, Lara Rios, Margo Candela, Jamie Martinez, Stella Pope Duarte. My friend Janet Johns. And finally, the lovely ladies in my writing group—Jessica Garrison, Sonia Nazario, Ann Marsh, Lara Bazelon, Lisa Richardson, Toni Ann Johnson, and Tsan Abrahamson.

I am deeply grateful to you all.

Photography Credits

Courtesy of Reyna Grande:
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Courtesy of Grad Images:
page 319

© istockphoto:
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A
LSO BY
R
EYNA
G
RANDE

Dancing with Butterflies

Across a Hundred Mountains

A través de cien montañas
(Spanish)

A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright © 2012 by Reyna Grande

Photography credits are on page 325.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

First Atria Books hardcover edition August 2012

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