A Father's Love

It was a Saturday afternoon and our family was getting ready to go to the beach. We lived about eight blocks from the beach, on an island in  southeast Texas. It was so nice there ,everywhere you look we were surrounded by water. I loved going to the beach on the weekends. My dad would cut the biggest watermelon we ever seen and it was always so sweet. We would play and swim for hours and  it was always so much fun playing with all my brothers and sisters. My Father, never seemed stressed about having so many kids. My mom was the same way; she would clean the whole house and cook everyday for all of us. My mom always did everything around the house. Our house was always so clean and neat. I was always so proud of my parents. When a holiday came, My parents would buy us two outfits for all special occasions, one for church and one for play. I always looked forward to holidays with my family.  I remember my mom telling us, people always complemented her on how well kept we all were. I loved my family. The only thing I wished for was that daddy didn’t have to work so much. But there were so many of us to feed and take care of so I  kind of understood why Daddy worked a lot..   I had five brothers and three sisters and my parents were having another baby in October. So as you can see that is a big family and we are still growing. Today was a great day for all of us,. We loved going to the beach with mom and dad .It was always so wonderful being a part of such a great family. My mom told us today we were going to have one of my dads cousins come and stay with us. We had never met this cousin. We knew  most of our parents family . But this cousin was a second cousin to my Daddy.  Our cousin was going to work for my dad or my uncles and save his money to help support his family in Mexico. My mom told us they  are poor and  our cousin is the son of my grandmother’s sister. She said he was a few years older than my oldest brother. We really didn’t think too much about it. I guess he will be sharing a room with the boys? Since he is a boy too. When we seen our parents getting ready for him to come and stay with us. I asked my mom  how long will he be staying with us? Mom looked at me and said, “for as long as he needs to.” We were ok with that since my parents were ok with it. All of the younger kids were in catholic school. My parents were very involved with the church and the school . I remember on Sundays my mom would take us to church and my father would be in the church cafeteria helping make Tamales to raise money for the school and the church. I was in the sixth grade then  and I loved school and my life.