MARIUXI IS BORN

FANNY IN FEBRUARY 1974, WHEN SHE WAS
SIX MONTHS PREGNANT

By the time Fanny was six months pregnant, we made a trip to visit my dad in Pallatanga, it was the Carnival long weekend, so I drove my 1969 Volkswagen bug the 70 miles to Pallatanga on Friday morning, and planned to spend the whole five day holiday visiting my father and enjoying the incomparable Pallatanga weather and maybe even tasting the delicacies Pallatanga people make in these festivities. Little did I know we were going to have a traffic accident that almost killed us, including our not yet born first child!
It was on Sunday, the most important day of the Carnival festivities, Fanny and I drove a few blocks to visit my uncle Antonio, a man I have a lot to talk about later in my story, and his wife Zoila. We had a chat with them and among the things we talked about was Azazán, the place where Antonio, Zoila and my father had been born, where our forefathers on the Romero side used to live. I remember Zoila saying she hadn’t seen Azazán for over 40 years, so I invited them (they were in their middle sixties) to come along to visit this place. It was a very sunny and pleasant day by the end of February 1974, Pallatanga and its neighboring hills were looking at their greenest best. Green was everywhere, that exuberant green resulting from the combination of good soil, lots of sun, rain and man’s hard work. It was just nature at its best.
After a few minutes of driving toward Azazán, a car coming from the north crashed against my car (going north) as we were taking a curb in our way to Azazán. It all happened in a matter of seconds, In a few minutes, Fanny, Antonio and Zoila were all covered by their own blood, I was also bleeding from my head but was well enough to try helping the other three in the car. It was only a few minutes before some help came from Pallatanga; they took us to our house which was only about a half mile away and called for medical help. My father was crying and his main concern was for Fanny and the baby she was carrying in her womb.
In about one hour the much needed first aid had worked, but Fanny, Antonio and Zoila needed much more than just first aid medical help. My brother Pancho, who had heard the news in the radio and was in Quito (two hundred miles away), moved so fast to provide his help that in a matter of four hours he was already in Pallatanga and took my wife, uncle Antonio and aunt Zoila to a hospital in Guayaquil. I was detained by the police for twenty four hours, together with the driver of the other car until a clarification of the accident was made. The following day I was in Guayaquil, visiting Fanny, who had been subjected to a facial surgery right above her left eye, and another surgery in her right leg. She was fine, but our main concern came from the warning of one of the doctors who said that we should be alert, because if the baby did not start moving within the 24 hours after the surgery, much to their displeasure, they would have to perform an abortion in order to save the life of the mother. The hours went buy as slow as I can’t remember, but, it was only after six hours that our baby started to move, the doctors came out broadly smiling. “The baby is just fine, no reason for concern” the doctors said and Fanny and I embraced each other in extreme happiness. “This baby is going to be tough” I said, and added “as tough as her father”, remembering what my mother had told me about the events prior to my own birth.



MARIUXI IN 1975, WHEN SHE WAS NINE MONTHS OLD

Little else happened after the Pallatanga carnival events, Fanny and I decided that we were not going to take any more trips outside Guayaquil until after the baby was born. Neither she nor I was willing to put our baby at risk any more, so, the time went by uneventfully but not short of happiness and great expectations. We enjoyed going out window shopping and whenever we liked something, we bought clothing for our future child. I confess my preference was for a baby boy, it is just the nature of Latino debutant fathers, whereas Fanny did not have a preference and she said many times “all I want is to have a healthy baby”. So the time went by, and the day of delivery was fast approaching. Since the doctors detected a bad position of the fetus, they decided to perform a C section so as to risk neither the baby nor the mother.
At seven A.M. on June 1, 1974, on Universal Children’s Day, a beautiful baby girl was born. The head doctor who attended the operation, a cousin of Fanny’s, actually showed his head out of the operating room, with his surgery gloves still on and bloody, and said in high voice which we all heard clearly “I’TS A BABY GIRL!, and off he went inside to finish his job.



MARIUXI AND ME AT THE END OF 1975
WHEN SHE WAS 18 MONTHS OLD

I was surrounded by Fanny’s family at that moment; they all were cheering, congratulating me and congratulating each other. About 30 minutes later, a nurse came into the new born babies’ room which could be seen through the glass from where we were, she had my baby in her arms, wrapped up in a yellow blanket, she showed her to us, and I instantly felt like the happiest man in the whole wide world. I fell in love with my little daughter right at that very moment, a love which kept growing bigger and bigger as Mariuxi grew up and which has continued growing non stop until these days. Mariuxi is now the mother of two adorable baby boys, our first and second grand children; those are two more great reasons to love her…
When Mariuxi and Carl got married in Guayaquil, on May 20, 2004, I wanted to remind myself and remind all my family and friends that, notwithstanding the immense love I have for Mariuxi, before she was born, I had wanted my first child to be a baby boy, so, I decided to sing a song for her and in front of her and her groom. The song tells the story of a father who, just like me, wanted to have his first child to be a baby boy and ended up having a baby girl, only to fall crazily in love with her as soon as she was born and forever after.


MARIUXI AT THE AGE OF SIX MONTHS-WITH FANNY

The poem was written by the Uruguayan Poet Angel Canales in the early fifties, and is now a classic song that is sung in almost all Spanish speaking weddings. I couldn’t help but cry while I was singing, because I had Mariuxi and her groom standing right in front of me, while telling them in the song that I have prayed my God asking for a loving husband for my daughter, for a husband that would take good care of her. Mariuxi, her husband Carl and most, if not all the 250 people in the reception room were sobbing with me that night. I couldn’t help but cry out of happiness, as I was singing. The end of this short story is a happy one, my prayers had been certainly heard, Carl is a very loving and caring husband, he is, for Fanny and I, just like one more of our own children, he is also a much loving and caring father for his two young children, and Mariuxi is the loveliest mother, while at the same time, she has made us the happiest grandparents any one can think of.
In my next posting: QUITO IN SIGHT