As my husband drove back from an evening visit to the botanical gardens with his grandparents, he pointed out the stars. Phoenix isn’t known to be a dark-sky city, but here the stars sparkled much brighter than what his grandparents were used to at their home in Puebla, a two-hour drive from Mexico City.
It was the first night Pancho, 83, and Licha, 86, had spent outside Mexico, and the only word they could find to describe the experience was “sueño,” dream. “Todo esto es un sueño,” they repeated as we pushed them in wheelchairs around the gardens, lit up for the holidays with luminarias lining the dirt paths that weaved around towering saguaros. “Ni soñado que íbamos a estar aquí.” This is all a dream. We never dreamed we’d be here.
Later, in the car, Licha gazed out at the stars, eyes fixed on the night sky. It was then that she whispered, almost to herself, something I’ll never forget: “¿Dónde estará la abuelita?” I knew immediately she was asking about my maternal grandmother, Sue: Where might she be? “Ahí arriba está,” I told her. “Nos está cuidando.” She’s up there, taking care of us.
Sue died two weeks before Licha and Pancho boarded a flight to the U.S. It was a Saturday in mid-November, and I was getting ready to write something to say the next day at my paternal grandfather’s memorial service. He had died in late October after a short battle with a relentless infection. When I got the news Sue had passed, it was both devastating and merciful. Devastating in the way many deaths are — there wasn’t enough time. Merciful in the way many people who have watched a loved one die will understand — there’s a point at which witnessing suffering makes you pray for relief.
I sat on the floor and called my husband. “I’m so sorry. I love you,” he told me. And then: “I’m going to call my abuelita.”
My husband and I had dreamt of our grandparents meeting again for a long time — especially Licha and Sue. They met only once, during the weekend of our wedding outside Mexico City three years ago, where they danced together and communicated via gestures and smiles. Despite not speaking a word of each other’s language, they sent gifts back and forth and asked about each other on nearly every visit and phone call we made to their respective homes.
Toward the end, Sue couldn’t talk — but when I mentioned Licha and Pancho would come soon, she opened her eyes wider, and I could tell she understood. When we told her the depths of Sue’s discomfort, Licha began praying for the same relief I had. Later, my mom would tell my husband that she thought Sue was waiting for Licha, holding on — perhaps until, I think, she received the unspoken message that it was OK to let go.
Licha and Pancho were supposed to have spent last Christmas in the U.S. For much of 2024, my husband and I jumped through bureaucratic hoops to get them their passports and visas, consumed with and enamored by the possibility of creating a binational Christmas. Bringing our two families together again, we were sure, would be messy, and complex, and so beautiful. The multicultural texture, idiosyncrasy, and curiosity that Ricardo and I experience in each other’s families has made our lives rich. We wanted to pull our relatives into it as well.
Our binational Christmas miracle didn’t come true last year — three days before Ricardo, Pancho, Licha, and I were supposed to fly from Mexico City to Phoenix, a Rube Goldberg-machine-like chain of bureaucratic visa complications useless to recount here made the trip impossible. Instead, Ricardo, Licha, and Pancho spent Christmas in Mexico, and I spent the holiday in Arizona. Later, we brought to Puebla the gifts my family had placed under the tree for Licha and Pancho: a scarf, a hat, a calendar, socks, a necklace, Christmas ornaments, and a small ceramic bust of the Virgin Mary that had belonged to my great-grandmother.
We were eager to reschedule the visit. But a couple months later, Pancho was hospitalized due to what were eventually identified as recurring problems with his heart. By the time he made it out of the hospital, the idea of bringing them to visit the U.S. felt like a nostalgic relic of what might have been, not a feasible future prospect.
The year continued on, and then Ricardo got the news we had been waiting years for: His green card had been approved. We moved to the U.S. and began our life here — a privilege we felt immense gratitude for, yet one that still carries a weight. It’s always painful to leave half of your life behind, even if you’re one of the lucky few who can return to knock on its door.
Pancho continued to get better, and then, several months after his hospitalization, the doctor cleared him for travel. We asked Licha and Pancho if they were interested in coming to visit the U.S. this year, to see the life we had started building. As we spoke on the phone, I thought of the small Sears-branded roller bag they had bought in anticipation of last year’s trip, of the photos I had taken of them celebrating with their visas. Their answer was yes.
In the weeks leading up to the visit, I was anxious. I worried about their health: Losing my paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother in such quick succession had paralyzed me with the feeling that all of this was too fragile. I worried, too, about their needs and desires: Would they be comfortable, would they feel welcome?
As I tangled myself in worry, I remembered my late grandfather preparing to meet Licha and Pancho last year, wondering if they might like a puzzle with an Arizona landmark as a keepsake. He and Sue had been so excited about the hoped-for visit — carrying it out felt like a way to honor their vision of our shared family.
During the eight days they spent here, Pancho and Licha carried that vision, and in doing so, they gave me the greatest gift I could receive. Accompanied by an aunt who helped them navigate the journey, they spent days taking in the sun on our back porch as we worked, and we drove around city landmarks in the evening. We brought them to Sedona, the Grand Canyon, to touch snow for the first time. We ate tacos de lengua and pho, huevos con tortilla and chili. We played lotería, and they slept in my great grandmother’s home; when there was no translator around, they spoke to my parents using Google Translate. They had lunch with my paternal grandmother, the last grandparent I have, and helped decorate my family’s tree. It was messy, complex, and beautiful.
As the trip came to a close, my mother, who was cleaning out Sue’s home, gave Licha a few Christmas gifts she felt my grandmother would have wanted Licha to have: glass ornaments in the shape of angels, a beaded white skirt-set she must have worn to an awards ceremony of some sort, and a long red coat — Sue’s signature color. The coat fit Licha perfectly, and when I saw her in it, I missed Sue a little less. It wasn’t the binational Christmas we had once imagined, but it was still a miracle.
As we drove to the airport on their final day, I told Licha how grateful I was to them for coming—to leave your country for the first time at 86 to go to a place completely unfamiliar is a gift of bravery and love. “Si Dios nos permite,” she told me, “en cinco años vendremos de nuevo.” God willing, we’ll come again in five years.
Mia Armstrong-López is a writer based in Phoenix. She is the managing editor of ASU Media Enterprise. This essay was written for Zócalo Public Square.
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