A dedication to Mama Nena

On Sunday 19th September my grandmother (Mama Nena) passed away peacefully in her sleep in El Salvador. Mama Nena was at peace with herself and was finally reunited with her husband.

This post is decicated to my Mana Nena whom I loved and will miss treamendously.

.....When I think back to my childhood memories, the one person who is always at the centre of my thoughts is always Mama Nena. La Mama Nena…what a grandmother she was! She had 9 children, 23 grand children….and then there were the 21 great gran children…wow! She was the person who has connected all of us together and the one who always been there when you needed her.



My mum tells me that when I was born she spent a couple of months living at our house helping mum out, and when we moved to Australia she moved here for 2 years to live with us. And that’s just what she did…she did whatever had to be done to make sure that her children were ok and helped out wherever she could. No questions asked…she was just there. And, just like she helped us, she did the same with all the other children. Mama Nena is the one who taught our Mothers and Fathers about the meaning of family, love and respect for one another and these are the values that our parents have taught us and the ones that we will pass on to our children.

So what do I remember most about Mama Nena? Well….my earliest memories of her are of course been at her house with my two cousins…Jennifer and Virginia. I remember the three of us always playing at Mama Nena’s house…whether it was helping her and mi Tia Gladys with sewing, or just playing outside in the (small) garden, we were always at Mama Nena’s house and she was taking care of us (most likely she was chasing us around yelling at us for doing something wrong!). The one thing that was ALWAYS guaranteed though when you went to her house was her famous PAN CON AZUCAR…(bread roll with some sugar and water)…sounds like a weirdo thing I know! But to all of us (23) cousins this was Mama Nena’s famous treat and we LOVED it!

Now I keep going on about how there was 23 of us cousins…but try to imagine a house with 23 kids, 16 adults (the parents)…can you just imagine the mayhem…!! I grew up with the best cousins anyone could ever ask for and we just had the best time playing with one another and running around (I can still remember the three of us girls getting annoyed with some of our boy cousins, Julio Quan, Miguelito and Carlos Arturo who were always annoying us!).


But then we all grew up…. and some of us families moved to Australia and no longer were we all ever in that house all together at the same time. But as each of us visited her house in the different times we have been to El Salvador, I know we always remember the good times we had and the way in which she connected all of us and created such a great big family.


Later on in my life as she spent time with in Australia, other memories were formed….and here are a just a few of them:


• In grade 8, I had a home economics assignment: to sew a pair of shorts. Might seem easy to anyone reading this, but I hated sewing and was never good at it. I came home crying for help as I had sewn the two legs together! and like the great person that she was, she took one look at me and said that she would help me.(ie ended up sewing the whole thing again and I had the best shorts ever!)


• Mana Nena always seem to become friends with ANYONE that was willing to pay her some attention. I remember one house where we lived for a long time in Riverhills she was friends with our neighbour and also the family that lived about 5 doors down. She used to just go to their house and even though they didn’t really speak Spanish they managed to communicate in some special way and used to spend hours with them!


• And what about the rocks that she used to collect and paint? All of us cousins will remember that she used to go and collect random rocks and just paint them, and then would give it to us as presents…..everyone remembers ‘las piedritas’


• But painting rocks was not her only talent. Our grandmother used to also spent many many hours making all of us all kinds of different paintings. She made me a beautiful painting of all different types of fruits that I have framed and hangs proudly in my house.


Mama Nena, you have been an example to all of your children, grandchildren and great gran children. Thank you for been in our lives and for all the love and help you gave everyone. You will be in my heart and thoughts for ever.