The Angel of the Nopal
A story my mother told me. My mother's early years were spent in southern Bexar County, Texas. Today the area is growing. There is a sprawling neighborhood, a car plant, and two colleges in what was once ranches and chaparal. I remember back in the 1960s, it was mostly ranch land. When my mother was a child, it was surely even less developed. She said she was 5 or 6 when she wandered away from her home. So this would put it around 1946 or 47. It was likely a warm day as she wandered through the south Texas brush, cactus, and mesquite trees. When children start exploring, they become focused at the task at hand and pay little mind to where they're going or how they should get back. This was probably the case with my mother. She was wandering through the chaparral and then noticed she couldn't see her house through the dry grassland. She recalled panicking and crying because she realized that...