A Mom on a Wall

A nice lady walked up to my table today while I sipped my coffee and browsed the web. It turns out her mother’s college graduation photo from 1958 was right behind me, and this is the only copy she knows to still exist.

We spoke briefly about family, history, and living in Quetzaltenango. As we talked, we switched back and forth between english and spanish, with a fluidity well known to most bilinguals. Then she excused herself and I paused to look around again. I’d been in this cafe many times before.

I doubt there is any better way for the pictures on these walls to have come alive. I enjoyed them previously, but now they have a heftier, more human meaning.