The Matriarch
A good tortilla is really just flour, salt, water, and some sort of oil or lard. The art is striking the correct balance. Lucy gives us a “recipe” with measurements, but everyone who has tried to make her tortillas knows you hardly measure anything.
The flour should be high altitude since we live in Colorado, and the water should be lukewarm. Getting the correct size of dough balls is even more challenging, but it all must be done timely to ensure the dough won’t dry out before you can cook it.
Though we can learn how to make tortillas and chile and rice in our own way, there’s nothing quite like Lucy’s food. Never in my life have we ever had “traditional” American Thanksgiving or Christmas food, and I consider myself pretty far removed from the true Mexican roots of my family.
My family has been in America for exactly 100 years this month. The visa was signed “Florentino Picon”.
Though this man is obviously European, he wed a Hispanic/Native American woman in Mexico before coming across the border with their children in El Paso. My great-great-grandparents were children when they came to Kansas to work on the farms for cheap labor.
Fast-forward to the year 2021, and I’m finally taking the time to sit down with the people, mainly women, who have held this family together and nurtured them for generations. My favorite photo I’ve taken over the years is Lucy with her apron on, making sure everyone is well-fed, I’m sure.
Once you have a dough ball, rolling it out into a circle is actually much more difficult than it seems. It also seems the small but strong hands in the family know this rhythm the best.
These hands know so much more difficulty and hardship than I will ever have to know. We stand on the shoulders of trailblazers and patriots who, thankfully, always have a strong sense of family.
What I’ve noticed is that as they’ve grown older, all the aunts regularly talk about the good times they’ve had over the years. I hardly hear them complain even though I know even a fraction of what they’ve gone through in their lives.
They all still laugh together every holiday and tell anyone who will listen their favorite stories, like the time they hardly took a look out their van at the Grand Canyon because they were worried one of the others would cheat at poker and look at someones cards.
They were young when they experienced the famines during the war and they were all in deep poverty. Their parents had passed away and Lucy singlehandedly took care of her 4 siblings, my grandpa being the youngest.
Grandpa John still has a sparkle of mischief in his eyes, despite his silvering hair. He has since become a highly successful businessman and recently retired.
He is not a perfect man, but he’s given me one of my favorite pieces of advice. You may not always be the smartest person in the room, but you should always be the hardest worker in the room.
When tragedy strikes, there is a strong family there to help you when you need them most. I read through lists and lists of extended family members I might never truly know, but thankfully I know more of my family than most.
Their wisdom is timeless and their laughs are infectious. I hope to become half as wise and strong as the women who have taught me so much over fresh tortillas.
