Long Ago and Far Away

My mother returned from visiting my Abuelita in Mexico. She brought back old family photos.  The babies in the photos passed away ten years ago or so, they were my great-uncles.  As we go forward, photos some from the past begin to appear worlds away, not decades, but worlds away from where I stand today. Mothers, fathers and children in poses that are found in photos today but I know too much about the people in these images and their lives. The parents were not alive very long. They lived a decade longer before my great-grandfather was murdered for his political beliefs. His wife cried for him non-stop for a year or so. She didn't eat, she didn't sleep, she only cried. She died soon after him. The boys in the family were taken to California to be educated and the youngest, a girl of three, my Abuelita, was placed in an orphanage until her great-aunts took her in.  The family fell apart until the oldest of the boys was grown, returned to Mexico and worked at reuniting his siblings. They all lived in the same town after that and remained very close. My Abuelita is the only one left. Today she turns 94.