Passage II

Repaving Traditions

When I turned fifteen, my father and I traveled to Mexico to visit my grandparents in Jungapeo, Michoacán. I had not seen Grandma and Grandpa in three years, and I was eager to see them again and hear their stories about their lives. At the same time, I felt apprehensive about the visit. My friends had often talked about how their relatives in Mexico chastised them for their dress and behavior. I worried that my grandparents would be freaked by the ways I'd changed in the past three years, or critical of the generous amount of freedom to which my father had accustomed me. Even though I was anxious, I traveled eagerly with my father.

Eventually my father and I arrived in Jungapeo, we noticed that something had changed. The cobblestone road that had been etched in our minds as a unique element of my grandparents' town had been replaced by the gray monotony of recently laid pavement. (19) We walked down the smooth street to my grandparents' house in silence.

During dinner, my father asked about the loss of the cobblestone road, which Grandpa and him had help lie and maintain. Its removal, my father said, was like the erasure of a memory—the discarding of a traditional landmark. Grandpa said that, in their old age, he and Grandma had often stumbled on those rough-hewn cobblestones. If my father had had to walk down that street every day, most likely he might not remember the cobblestones so fondly. Grandma agreed. Fixing the road every year had become a kind of tradition in the family, she said, but traditions should not be kept, if their only purpose, is to help people live in the past.

While I did not know if my grandparents had always thought that way. I also did not know, yet, whether they would approve of my clothing or the apparent lack of authority my father had over me. However, I was certain that my grandparents had once again taught me something important, and with that, some of my misgivings about, the visit, began to disappear.