My brother Eduardo

He's not my real brother, but after a few years of his helping me keep our back yard presentable, and getting to meet two of his blood brothers, we had a long conversation yesterday.  Those reading this if anywhere near my own age, which I define by remembering a time before television, are aware of changes in technology and culture that were beyond the imagination of science fiction of our childhood.

Words.  It's a part of our beings as basic as the air we breathe.  Infants don't remember those first words uttered and understood, yet this mastery is the single difference between us and our phylogenitc cousins, chimpanzees and bonobos.  In my own situation discovery of words came past infancy watching my father absorbed in something called a newspaper, with black markings that were like our talking, but different.

If blessed by educated parents, some may have had this explained and maybe even learned to pronounce some of the things on those lines of the  newspapers, the written word.  I sensed my father absorbed in those newspapers, having no inkling of why.  Later I realized the articles were about the clash of civilization of a war that had engulfed the world, that this child was told nothing about.  "President Roosevelt is Dead" "Atomic Bomb Dropped on Japan"  ""Japan Surrenders" were earliest memories of headlines shouted out the window by my big sister, still not by reading them
 
 Finally, at last, on that magical day my first grade teacher opened the big book, she pointed at the shapes and said to us, , "Look Dick look"  I now had the key, that I knew I would be able to know all of the words, the articles, the stories that my father and mother were fascinated by.  Thus began the long quest for understanding, that now nearing the end of my life, I must accept as part of my particular voyage.

Eduardo was born three decades after me, in a village in Mexico, that he wrote down as Chatino Zezomtepc, and then he told me about it.  His village was a continuation of a culture, language and even something that isn't really translatable: it's not government, or legal system, but a single elder, who takes the role of resolving any conflicts that may arise. This culture existed not only before Columbus but from a time when Aztecs and Incas were the civilizations of the region.  I won't pretend to have more knowledge than this single conversation and this Wikipedia article, but both confirm something that explains the rare warmth that defines our relationship.

Eduardo's first language, and that of his parents, didn't have written words, but were one of about a hundred current languages that are becoming extinct as the years go by.  There is a commonality  between the interaction of Europeans with indigenous peoples in the U.S. and Canada, except, these Mexican groups were more isolated.   Eduardo's infancy, and not only that his parents, but perhaps hundreds of generations previously, were cloistered circles of a small dwellings where everyone was extended family.   Even to this day, there is no private property, the idea of personal enrichment to the detriment of a neighbor probably doesn't exist.

Since Eduardo does not have "papers," when the current President took office, I asked him whether he was troubled by his aggressive hostility to those in his situation.  His response took me a while to understand.  He said, "It doesn't matter, if I have to go back it will be fine."   Eduardo came to this country twenty years ago, and while some of his brothers have joined him,, he hasn't been back to Mexico, or his village since then.  When I call Eduardo a brother, its a genuine feeling of simple affection that siblings can feel between each other.  Maybe, it's partly that his lack of anglo social status is no threat to my sensitivity to a lack of it, as we can relate as if none of this matters.

I would love to be able to go with him to his village, to explore as much as possible the belonging that he must have felt by dint of his simply being born.  There are no professional authorities -- lawyers, doctors, accountants, businessmen, politicians--- none of this, just other members of this extended group who speak the same language and now follow the same religion -- which happens to be a variation of Christianity - an artifact of Spanish conquerors. .

Eduardo knows he could never visit and then return.  He can never take his friend, (that's me) with him to be introduced to his family.  I get the feeling that he enjoys my company as much as I enjoy his.  He gets pleasure in being able to satisfy my somewhat complex landscaping needs without the impulse to think how this can be best monetized.  He would do it out of friendship if he didn't need to buy gasoline and pay rent!  I realize that both Eduardo and myself never absorbed much more than the primitive need for affection and belonging.

I sort of envy Eduardo, since while he became part of the ancient traditional language of his people, I, and those of my generation were excluded.  The ancient language of Yiddish, part German but with some Aramaic going back unbroken for generations, ended with me.  Eduardo was part of the long strain of extended family going back centuries, while I happened to be the one just past the last of the line.  Eduardo could sense what such a person would be feeling and offered special affection to this person, spending time to share what both of us have lost.

We spent a few minutes where I could clarify his confusion when he described his religion as not being Christian, but rather,Catholic.  I explained the diagram, the apex being Christianity, and then the divisions between Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant.   It turns out he defines his faith as Catholic, but not part of the hierarchy assumed in the term, with the Pope at the apex.  He has an extended annotated New Testament in his truck, that he had shared with me including some "science fiction as facts" that seems to be a belief among his group.