GrowingOlderHopeWiser

Cheres (Catalina) Pinzoń Lara, “La Chinita,” as her school friends called her back in the day at the orphanage, stood quietly in her pink housecoat at the stove, stirring her pot of intensely aromatic “Sopa de Pollo.” Her smooth, rounded face belied her true age, and her almond-shaped, dark Café Caramelo eyes spoke of her rich Indigenous, Spanish, and Jewish heritage. Four of her rambunctious grandchildren plowed through the back screened door, which squeaked furiously, bursting with excitement. They had collected blackberries from the overgrown field next to the property and wanted her to make her delicious blackberry pie. Catalina smiled and accepted the basket of berries. She gave them Kool-Aid and cookies for a snack. They gobbled the cookies and slurped the Kool-Aid breathlessly, eager to get back outside. But first, she had to play nurse and clean and mend a few scratches. The field was full of thorns, insects, and other hazards. Her children and grandchildren were her lifeline, the very connection that held her, kept her grounded, and kept her at peace.

 La Casa Lara, a modest ranch, was painted a pale turquoise-blue, like the beautiful Caribbean Sea on the Atlantic side of what was soon to be Panama. Like a worn, faded jewel box, it stood in the soft golden afternoon sunlight. It was at the edge of a sleepy, modest working-class village, where people lived in 40 or 50 huts built of cane and straw, sweat, and hard work. The ranch was self-sustaining and tucked away near the Colombian border. The Lara family was busy with their afternoon chores. Mama Amalia Pinzoń Lara, the matriarch, stood by her glowing wood stove, preparing this evening’s supper of freshly caught fish and plantains. Josefina Andrades and Emma Zapata, the two older daughters, helped her chop crisp red and green peppers on a wooden stump. 6 of the younger children played noisily in the dusty yard. Amalia’s third husband, Senior Locario Lara, a Jewish immigrant with shocking red hair (El Colorado), made his rounds around the village, trading gleaming pots and dishes. He had twin daughters with Amalia Pinzón, whom he nicknamed Café y Leche. Catalina (Café), 4, and her half-sister, Mina, 12, ventured into the nearby, steamy, hot, and lush rainforest to pick fruit. Shards of sunlight cut through the leaves and gnarled tree trunks like sharp knives. The girls giggled and squinted as beads of sweat formed on their foreheads while they picked and sampled berries. Their mouths were saturated with juice that dripped onto their dresses. Small purple-red handprints decorated Catalina’s pale pink gingham dress. Only a few of the blackberries made their way into the hand-woven basket.

 
   The Thousand-Day War ended in mid-1902, a long, brutal war that pitted brother against brother. The rebels who sought Panama’s independence from Gran Colombia received support from the United States and military assistance. While the girls picked berries in the field, their village was destroyed, and their family was killed in the conflict. The girls were separated in the commotion, and Mina lost track of her younger sister. 

With no one left in the village to search for her, Catalina remained lost in the dense forest, now forbidding.  

    A grouchy old man, smelling of outdoors and tobacco, with thick, dense eyebrows and a brown face weathered by time, walked through the back door now, shooing the children out of the house. This grouch of a man was her anchor, and she accepted him, warts and all. James, Santiago Jesus, was not an easy man to live with. He was Colombian, proud, and controlling. He was an aircraft mechanic and a World War I army veteran. He offered stability, a safe home, and children. James was a man of few words but many political opinions. He made his way through the kitchen and into the living room, plopping down like a suitcase with broken straps, settling into his favorite big chair in front of the TV set. He picked up his favorite smoking pipe and a small bag of loose, sweet-smelling tobacco and began his afternoon ritual, puffing his pipe and discussing the day’s news on TV out loud to no one in particular, since Catalina just smiled and continued with her dinner preparations.

    The dense rainforest was terrifying to a 4-year-old; what little she could see of the sky was bruised purple and red, and the roar of cannons and stifling pillars of smoke from the fires filled the air. Catalina hid even more. Mina gave up trying to find her. The 12-year-old managed to escape the tattered ruin of the burned village and found her way to the governor’s house, where she became a nanny to his children and was brought to America. Little Catalina remained lost in the forest far too long. She made her way deeper into the inky darkness of the forest, farther from civilization. Howler monkeys boomed loudly and swung up into the highest tree branches upon seeing this little girl stumbling around in the sweltering heat, whimpering as she went further into the deadlier parts of the deep forest. They were as afraid of her as she was of them. Iguanas, snakes, and numerous reptiles scurried along the ground and up trees. The rainforest was alive with creeping, slithering, and jumping creatures. Instinct told her to be brave and keep going. She finally reached the river’s edge on the other side of the forest. The borderline between her people and the Embera. The river was a deafening cascade of water tumbling over jagged, flat, slippery rocks. The passage was almost impossible and dangerous. One slip and she would be carried down the river with roaring force. Catalina crawled over the rocks, as if hanging on to her life. Sometimes, on all fours, her bare feet kept getting sliced on the rock edges. Adding to the chaos, the rain pounded her like tiny daggers. It was as if the fury of life had thrown everything at her at once, as if the dark, scary rainforest wasn’t enough.

A small hunting party from the Embera tribe found Catalina shivering at the river’s edge. In shock, she had lost her voice and could not speak. They took her to their village, where they offered her protection. There, she stayed for several years, learning their ways and being cared for by the community. She learned to swim like a fish and to catch fish with her bare hands, to sing and dance the soulful dance of the two sisters, and to carve animals from small pieces of cocobolo, like the other children in the village. Catalina was now a free spirit, a brave daughter of the rainforest. She felt safe and at ease among the Embera.

Little Catalina stood out from the other children because of her lighter complexion and lack of tattoos. She had not yet reached any milestones that would warrant a beautiful, permanent tattoo.

   One day, the Daughters of Charity, Catholic nuns from the orphanage, found her during their rounds through the indigenous villages. When a nun approached her, she bit the nun’s finger and ran away. But she was found again and taken to the Catholic Orphanage, where she stayed for many years. Her sister Mina, now well established in America, decided to return to Panama to try to find Catalina, and she did. Catalina, now a young teenager, decided to remain with the nuns and become one herself. So Mina returned to America without her sister, but she was happy to have found her and to have reconnected.

    Catalina stepped outside for a few minutes to feed the kittens born under the house. They stumbled over one another, trying to reach the cans of Puss and Boots she had opened. In the distance, she could hear the children playing. Their laughter, a comforting sound, brought back memories of her time in the forest, playing with the Embera children. She closed her eyes, nostalgic, took a deep breath of the fresh spring air, then returned to her stove. Blackberry pie needed to be made.

    Catherine, her formal American name, had planned to become a nun but decided to visit her sister Mina in America just before taking her final vows at 21. New York was a bustling jungle of a city, far from the peaceful, introspective convent. At a party, a handsome young man with smoky dark eyes approached her. He was an engineering student at Columbia University. That party changed her fate forever. James stole her heart the moment she set eyes on him, and after 6 agonizing months, they married. The decision was not easy, given her devotion to God and the Daughters of Charity.

    She had eight grandchildren and six of her own adult children. Her small two-bedroom red-brick bungalow in Farmingville, Long Island, stood in the middle of Lidge Drive, across from the homes of her two daughters, both registered nurses, Francis and Josephine, and their families. Her two older sons, Albert, an engineer and Navy veteran, and George, a career Air Force major, lived in the city with their wives. Yolanda, also a nurse, lived in the city with her husband. Elizabeth, the youngest daughter, passed away in her early twenties. Catalina’s home was affectionately known as “El Campo” and was the hub of many family reunions. During the holidays, the women in the family assembled traditional Panama tamales and shared family stories. Her husband kept to himself, always fixing and adding to the house and backyard.

   Catalina opened the screened back door and called the children in. The fragrant blackberry pie was cooling on the kitchen counter, and the grandchildren elbowed each other to get to the bathroom sink to wash their hands and faces. La familia sat noisily but happily around the table, and Catalina smiled.