“Tell me the story again, Chulo,” MariLena politely beckons. “The day your kite flew over the river and into the sky. Every time you tell me that story, I change the color of the sky, the clouds, the trees . C’mon , Chulo!”
Lena’s pleading now.
Not sure why Lena’s love affair with my story is so strong but I give in … as I always do .. and begin.
“My head and heart wander back to an autumn day in downtown Detroit, where a chubby, little five-year-old asthmatic me, Chulo , is happily running back and forth across the grassy fields of Belle Isle, in my blue Keds. I see my parents, sitting on the blanket, laughing and talking to each other, busy tuning the transistor radio and hearing the jingle blaring:“CKLW , the Motor City !” The wind catches my kite and I chase it up and down and over the grass and around the picnic tables and my joy is boundless. Until I can’t breathe. I don’t see my father and mother running to help me as the kite billows away, over the Detroit River, and beyond. I wake up in the hospital hours later, in an oxygen tent with the strangest sight I’d ever witnessed in my life: both of my parents, one on each side of me, each of them holding one of my hands, staring at me, and whispering over and over ,
Mijo (my son),
Mijo (my son),
Mijo (my son),
My mother, crying. My Dad, staring at the tile floor. I can’t help but wonder if asthma was my one-day-only superpower that , on that urban island, brought my parents together in that bizarre moment of magic.”
Lena breathes out a long sigh and smiles, “Did you know that when I’m getting my breathing treatments, I close my eyes and play your story in my head? But , I change it up some.”
Dying of curiosity, I ask, “What do you mean?”
Lena: “My kite is criss-crossing the sky and we’re both laughing and running and trying not to get our kites entangled. We’re laughing so hard, we can barely breathe.”
Lena reaches for me and smiles.
I think to myself, “ Asthma might just be a superpower after all.”
—
Previously Published on medium
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Photo credit: (photo by author) Ruben Mauricio “Thinking back to my early days in Detroit”
