going to the movies...

Last Saturday, I was on the phone with my mom and we talked for a couple of hours.  I hardly ever see her anymore.  She does not live near me so I only get to see her on occasion and only on the weekends.  We were just chatting away when I remembered to tell her about my little incident of when I thought I had lost my daughter.  I told her how awful and scared I felt for those 20 minutes that I didn’t know where my daughter was.  My mom says to me, “You see, now you know how I felt the day I lost you!”  I began to laugh because I remember it like it was yesterday.  In fact, one day out of the blue I saw it clearly in mind (almost like a little movie playing in my mind).  At first, I thought it was a dream but when I told my mom about it, she confirmed everything.  Funny how I could remember something that happened a long time ago but I can’t remember things that happened yesterday.  

I was born in Mexico and lived in a small town near Guadalajara.  My dad left Mexico to come to the United States to work, while my mom and I stayed behind and lived with my grandma.  

I was two or three years old at the time and my mom would take me to the movies almost every weekend.  My mom told me that I loved going to the movies because every time we would get ready to go out, I would get excited and ask if we were going there.  

Here is what I remember:

My mom was brushing my hair and I asked her if we were going to the movies.  My mom says, “No, we’re not.”  She kept brushing my hair… “Mom… are we going to the movies?”  “No!”  Well, after asking one too many times and even after my mom had said no several times, she finally gave in and said, “Yes, we’re going to the movies”.  (Later I found out that my mom was really getting us ready to go visit an aunt who was ill.)

While she was finishing getting ready, I became very impatient.  And what I remember next is getting a chair that was near the door and moving it closer so I could climb up on it to open the lock.  Once I unlocked the door, I remember getting off the chair and opening it.    

I don’t know how I walked in the theater without anyone noticing me.  But next thing I know, I was there by myself sitting in the theater.  I remember thinking “when is this movie going to start?”  I kept looking around and no one was there.  All I saw was a blank white screen.  

After that, I don’t know if I fell asleep or not, but eventually someone found me.  By then, I was sitting on a bench by the front entrance of the theater.  I remember it well... I saw two ladies working the candy/food counter and they were putting the food on display.  I kept thinking to myself how hungry I was and how I wished they would give me something to eat (ha! seems to me that’s all I think about, even today…!)

I don’t remember much after that.  

While I continued talking on the phone with my mom and reliving this little piece of my life, she told me it was the worst day of her life.  She said it happened during the “fiestas” so there were lots of people coming into town.   She said she was afraid someone had picked me up and taken me away.  There was a big river near by and they also feared that I had gone there and possibly drowned!  She had the whole family looking for me.  They went to all the nearby businesses, including the theater.  She asked around the theater if they had seen a little girl and no one did.  By then, she had the whole town looking for me.  But after few hours of looking high and low, and no sight of me, everyone began to panic.  My mom said she felt like she was going to die.  It was a total nightmare!  

Finally, one of my aunts decided to go back to theater in hopes of finding me.  She asked the ladies at the counter again if they had seen a little girl and one of the ladies said to my aunt, “you must be looking for this little girl, she’s been sitting here quietly by herself.”  And that’s when they found me.  Yes, I was there looking innocently sitting on the bench all by myself.   Of course, my mom said that no one could believe that a little girl would walk to theater by herself.  Now remember I was only 2 or 3 years old when this happened.  The theater was about 4-6 blocks from where I lived and across from the plaza.  So picture me as a little toddler walking by myself for several blocks, crossing a few streets and no one ever saw me.  How did this happen?  I have no idea!

All I know is that I must have really loved going to the movies!  And I still do!