In an article published by National Catholic Register, TCA’s Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie shares a story of her friend Guadalupe in her article titled “Welcoming the Stranger: Family Opens Home and Hearts to a Dying Woman” She writes:
Guadalupe moved in with us for six weeks, almost three years ago.
She had been renting a room from my neighbor Nery, a kind, elderly woman who needed the companionship much more than the nominal rent she charged Guadalupe. Nery came to see me one day to ask if we could offer Guadalupe a place to stay for a few weeks while she visited family in California.
We knew Guadalupe, as, indeed, everyone in our parish knew her. She was a little Mexican woman, just a little over four feet tall, with skin as brown as a nut and the quiet dignity of the honest, working poor. She was a masterful cook with a great relish for invention, and had she drawn a different number in the great lottery of life she would have been a great chef, I think.
The story of her life was one of bitter poverty and many cruel trials.
She married for love, at 15 or 16, and was widowed soon after, when her young husband fell from a great height while working in construction. This happened in Texas, and I never asked her how they managed to cross the border. Her son Andres was born after his death, prematurely and with severe facial deformities. She raised him by herself, nursing him with adoring tenderness through many surgeries, and all of this while working as a maid and cook. Only God knows how.
