We all remember our first love. Sometimes with genuine fondness of their memory and other times with laughter at our naivety. But still, we all remember our first love. My mum had just reached adolescence when she fell in love. She fell for a dark curly haired boy. She fell for the dimples that formed when he’d smile at her. She fell for his piercing dark eyes that followed her as she’d walk through in his presence. Going to the movie theaters was the designated place where the courting would take place and where they would experience the cliche romance of two young teenagers in love in its purity and innocence.
As soon as my mum’s mother received word from my mum’s brother that she was “out kissing boys”, she and two of her younger siblings were smuggled over the border to reside in Phoenix, Arizona. Like many of the chapters of my mum’s life story, this was the first of many to never have closure. Just an empty page of infinite possibilities that were ripped out of her hands to experience.
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