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My Grandmother's Story & A Poem

  • Sara Aranda
  • Riverside, CA
  • UNITED STATES
  • 19
My Grandmother, Dorene Melendrez, was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. She didn't go to college, but took 1 year in a business school, where she became a certified secretary. She had relatives already living in Huntington Park, some in La Mirada, and some in Fullerton. The first time she ever came down to SoCal was when she was 13. She took the train down with her mother, a 24-hour train ride and she stayed up all night with a map in her hands, not wanting to miss a thing. She said SoCal was much more sophisticated and more glamorous than Portland. Everyone had cars in SoCal, everyone had TV's, everyone could go to the warm beaches whenever they wanted. Jobs and warm sunlight were abundant. She would take annual trips to visit her relatives.

Eventually she met my Grandfather in SoCal, who worked in the Coast Guard and eventually for a phone company. At age 19, my Grandmother officially moved out of Portland to live with some relatives near my Grandfather. They got married and had no trouble finding jobs or a place to live. SoCal was paradise: dependable weather, opportunity, and the glamour of Hollywood. There was no such thing as sun screen back then, and people spent a lot of time at the beach, and would burn purposely. My Grandma was one of those people, and of course, she eventually developed a skin cancer tumor on her back in the 70’s. Within her stay in California, one of things she was curious about were palm trees. To her, trees were for climbing, they provided shade, sustained fruit, etc. And so palm trees seemed quite pointless.

My grandparents now reside in Palm Desert, in a quiet and beautiful retirement housing development. Before, in Hacienda Heights, they had raised 3 children, 2 girls and 1 boy: my Uncle David, who currently has a 9-month old girl named Natalie; my mother Cheryl, who had given birth to me and my 3 siblings; and my Aunt Debbie, who passed away this May, 2008 of ovarian cancer.

The Other Side
A Poem by Sara Aranda

Train wheels
beneath your feet,
the world on the other
side of the window
now.

Your eyes,
that window,
maps can't show you
everything, so
don't sleep.

Palm trees are
poofed tufts atop
tall skinny posts. They
aren't for climbing. They
aren't for shade.

But it's Southern California.
Glamorous beaches,
TV's, and the rich.
Jobs for everyone,
lives for everyone,
sun burns for everyone.

Decades pass, and
children, grandchildren
are born to hear how
windows can project
the world, how

young memories
free with desire
behold the essence
of life, how all your
visions and memories
were once held by

train wheels
beneath your feet,
your world on the other
side of the country
now.