MARIA LUCY HERNÁNDEZ-RAMÍREZ
Maria Lucy Hernández- Ramírez passed away in McAllen, Texas at the age of 82 on April 1st.
From early on as a worker child at her peasant parents’ sharecropping plot in S. América, her thirst to imagine became unquenchable. Her signature poem as she recited it elicited endless waves of imagination: “Voy a beberme el mar… (I do intend to drink up the seas. Readied is my phantom vessel with Don Quixote at the wheel. I will travel, simply, beyond heights and distances…).”
With great solemnity, as though a character in the poem, one foggy morning at age 24, she came down the highlands full of grit to become her fate: Indefatigable, purposeful, fiercely independent, luchona, full of heroism. Behind her, stood the majestic Andes of her birthplace near Los Robles, the roadside emporium in the midsts of El Eje Cafetero. Never to return. Along her travels she met Myshkin, Dostoevsky’s The Idiot’s main character (a favorite book) who hereafter served as her moral compass in kindness, compassion and generosity of spirit in the fullest measure of love and abnegation. With her high school diploma and a handful of loaned dollars in her purse, she emigrated with her most precious cargo. Her three teen age children, José M., Fábio E. and Alejandro. Her wealth. Their first port of call on her way to Alaska: New York City. Henceforth, her children continue on Lucy’s legacy in spirit, virtue and values. With deep love and affection, she taught them also how to take on the seas.
In time, they became ”First Gen Immigrant Proud” building a kinder world of abundance for themselves and posterity, just like other surviving relatives of Lucy’s have: Clans from all walks of life that call home distant shores like New York, Maryland, California, Colorado, Argentina, New Zealand, Spain, Columbia, Korea, Japan, Michoacán and Reynosa, Mexico. In later years, most influential to her life was the care by her hand of each of her most beloved grandchildren, Cyrus Angel, Alexandra Campbell, Samantha Campbell, Noah G. Angell and Magea L. Santana. Among octogenarians, she became the Queen of Recycling in Las Milpas, Texas. A knack she adopted during her roads traveled, as an ode to Earth’s care. May God keep her loving spirit in The Light in this new eternal journey, with dutiful, stoic Don Quixote at the helm.
Lucy’s remains will be laid to rest at sea and places worldwide of most fondness and remembrance to her pioneering spirit at private events on her birthdate at noon.