Burnet, Texas, is small-town Texas, small-town America, at its finest, complete with a town square, drive-in restaurants and friendly people. Your name is just the beginning about what your neighbors know about you.
Nestled in the Texas Hill Country, about an hour northwest of Austin, Burnet is a gateway for viewing bluebonnets and other wildflowers in the spring, and hunting deer in the fall. In the summer, you can cool off in Lake Buchanan, Lake LBJ or one of the other nearby lakes or in the rapids of the Llano River, at “the slabs.”
About a quarter century ago, almost inexplicably for a Cuban American clan, Burnet became the emotional headquarters, a new hometown of sorts, for my mother’s family when my grandmother, Adela L. Godinez — my “Abadela” — moved there to be near my Aunt Helen, who a few years earlier had married a local boy, my Uncle Steve.
And Burnet, Texas, at the Oaks Nursing Home, is where Abadela died on Saturday morning, at age 82.
In between, there were hundreds, if not thousands of visits by family members to Burnet. As a child, weekend trips to Burnet were a welcome respite for me from the boredom of suburbia.
Sometimes, we went there to view the wildflowers or to tube through “the slabs, or for when my cousin Sam graduated from high school or his sister Bonnie got married.
But really, we went there to see Abadela.
Abadela did not leave many earthly possessions. As I think tonight about her room at the nursing home, I remember all the photographs. Hanging on wall is a photograph I took of a rainbow at Lower Falls, at Yellowstone National Park. I think there also is one of George W. Bush.
But the photographs clearest in my mind are the framed portraits and snapshots of her parents; her beloved older brother Lucas, who preceded her in death; her children; her grandchildren; and her great-grandchildren. Every time I visited her there, I was transfixed by those photos, especially of cousins I had not seen in years. As the oldest grandchild, I remember when many of them were babies, and I always was impressed by how everyone had grown up.
Abadela was not a rich woman, but her legacy, as depicted in those photographs, is worth more than the greatest fortune.
The family knew for about a week that Abadela’s death, after several years of declining health, was imminent.
As I steeled myself for the moment when I would receive the news, I kept thinking about my grandmother’s legacy.
Simply put, her family, even the miscreants and the black sheep, have made the world a better place.
Her children and grandchildren are physicians and journalists; actors and accountants; teachers and lawyers. Some of us also are mothers and fathers working hard to carry on the traditions of faith and love set by our matriarch, my Abadela.
My oldest memory of my grandmother is how she used to work two jobs at two different hospitals in the Dallas area. That kind of life was probably furthest from her mind as she grew up in upper-middle class Cuba, married and raised a family that eventually grew to 10 children.
However, in Dallas, she was a single mother, struggling to support the youngest of my aunts and uncles still at home.
I also remember never hearing her complain. After all, she had faith in God, and she was too busy trying to build a new American dream for herself, and for her children.
To see how she did, all you have to do is look at those photographs.
I don’t have “big” memories of my grandmother, those seminal moments that changed your life, just a bunch of little ones that make me smile.
When I was about 7 or 8, she and I took a summer vacation to visit my Aunt Ana in Birmingham, and my Uncle Rolfi and Aunt Marye, and my cousins, in St. Louis. Later, my mother, sister and I visited Abadela in Philadelphia, where she had moved to help care for Rolfi and Marye’s youngest children, including her namesake granddaughter, Adela Marye.
When I was in college, we wrote each other frequently. Maybe that’s why now I can’t get enough of sending e-mails and cards to keep in touch with family and friends. One card from Abadela I will never forget is when she tried to console me after the death of my father’s father, Abaray.
Later, when I was working in Waco, I did my best to make frequent trips to Burnet, just under two hours away. We’d talk about the news and my job at the newspaper. We’d talk about politics — she was a rabid Republican. We’d talk about the Dallas Cowboys and her favorite player, Emmitt Smith.
More recently, the visits were fewer and honestly, heartbreaking, as her physical and mental condition deteriorated. This once vibrant, always compassionate, independent woman had been reduced to an invalid, unable to communicate with those closest to her, including her oldest grandchild.
I also remember rushing to her bedside more than three years ago when her health took its first turn for the worst. As difficult as it was for me to be there, I made sure to make my peace with her, and with God, to tell her that I loved her, and that I was ready to accept whatever the Lord had planned.
Abadela’s death brings me some peace, for she is no longer suffering.
But what I still don’t understand, is why God waited so long to take her. What were we suppose to learn from watching her deteriorate over the pass several years?
Maybe the lesson is that we got to watch her die the way she lived.
With courage. I cannot imagine the fear she must have felt as she tried to keep the family fed and alive in a new home.
With faith. I have not known a better Christian and Catholic than my grandmother. As difficult as it was for me to visit her, there always was a spirit of holiness in her room at the Oaks Nursing Home, as if an angel was watching over her, and her family.
With love. The loyalty of her family, especially her children, during the past few years was unquestioned.
And with dignity.
Many years ago, Abadela made clear how she wanted to die, and to be memorialized.
She didn’t want any extraordinary measures taken to prolong her life if it ever came to that.
And forget a big funeral. As my mother told me this past week, Abadela wanted to be cremated. And for her family to have a Mass said, and then to have a drink.
One day soon, Abadela’s remains will be interred.
And we will have that drink.
I will be there.
Somewhere near her home, her family’s home, at a place called Burnet.
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