There was no question who would stay with her when she was rushed to the hospital with meningitis at age four while her mother, my daughter Maria, was pregnant. I planted myself at Claudia's bedside. I wanted to be sure that when she woke from her fever, she would look upon the face of someone who loved her. For days, she tossed fitfully, her eyes glazed and unseeing. I held her hand and tried to soothe her. "Rest, mi'ja. I am here for you always," I whispered, then prayed to God to take away my granddaughter's pain and give me a chance to keep my promise. Finally one day Claudia looked at me and knew me again. "Mama Mema," she said, lacing her fingers through mine.
It was always like that between us when Claudia was a child-so much closeness, so much love. She didn't have it easy at home, even after her parents moved their family to Las Vegas for better jobs at the big hotels. Her father succumbed to drugs and was in and out of jail, and her mother struggled to support the family, working long hours as a hotel housekeeper. I could see when I visited that the east Las Vegas housing projects were not the best place for children. To my relief Claudia seemed untouched by what went on there. She remained a bright and affectionate girl.
Then her parents divorced, and her mother remarried. Claudia could not get along with her stepfather. By junior high, she was skipping school and sneaking out at night. My daughter called me often. "I don't know what to do about Claudia," she said. "She's been hanging around with some tough kids, getting into fights. I try to tell her they're not a good influence, but she won't listen to a word I say anymore."
"Be strong, Maria. She needs you," I replied. I wanted to go help my daughter and granddaughter. But by then my husband had suffered a stroke that made travel impossible for us. All that I could do for Claudia from a distance was keep praying for her.
One night just before Claudia turned 14, her mother called me. She was desperate. "It's more than a rough crowd Claudia's with. She's in a gang!"
My grip tightened on the receiver. My God, how did things in the family get so broken down my granddaughter feels the only place she belongs is a gang?
"A rival gang chased her home last night. They yelled for her to come out and wouldn't leave until the police showed up." My daughter broke into sobs. "Those kids swore they'd kill Claudia! I need to get her away from here."
Bring Claudia to Tucson," I said. "I will look after her." With its own share of drug deals and shootings, my neighborhood in the barrio was not much of an improvement on theirs, but at least Claudia would be safe from the gang. And maybe I could give her the attention she needed to feel like part of the family again.
My daughter warned me how much Claudia had changed. But nothing could have prepared me for the tall, sullen teenager who arrived at my door one afternoon in February 1994. No hug, no "Mama Mema." Instead, a defiant stare, baggy pants that dragged in the dirt and an attitude even blacker than the lipstick smeared across her lips. This was not the Claudia I knew.
When her mother had to return to her younger children and her job in Las Vegas, Claudia's anger boiled over. "I hate it here!" she burst out one day. "There's no one to hang out with. How could Mom do this to me?"
"Claudia, your mother did this for your own good," I said.
"Why did she make me leave all my friends then?" Claudia asked. "They're the only ones who really care about me."
"Mi'ja, that's not true." I was going to add that her mother and I wanted only the best for her, but she stormed away. Oh, Claudia, I wanted to cry, I can tell you need love. Why do you shut me out?
Instead of our old closeness, a canyon of silence loomed between us. I could see Claudia on the other side, lonely and hurt and angry, and I longed to reach out my arms and pull her close to me again. But I couldn't get through to her. She refused to make conversation; I talked to her anyway. I cooked her favorite meals. I set rules about schoolwork and curfew so that she would know I had high expectations for her. I asked her to help me around the house. I wanted her to know she was needed.
Claudia didn't talk back to me, didn't put up a big fight when I woke her on Sunday mornings and dragged her to church, but she didn't listen to me either. Especially after she fell in with a group of kids who had her staying out until all hours. I shuddered to think what they were getting into. I'd seen what the streets could do to young people in the barrio, turning them old before their time, crushing their hopes in a way not even the hard life I'd known growing up in a poor Mexican village could.
I almost wore a path in the kitchen floor with all the pacing and praying I did, waiting up for my granddaughter night after night. God, bring Claudia back safely, I would plead. Let her see that my home and my heart are always open to her. But when Claudia stumbled in and I asked where she had been, she would not even bother to brush her hair out of her eyes so she could look at me and give me a straight answer. "Maybe you don't care what happens to yourself," I'd say as she hurried to her room. "But I do. I worry about you."
The rest of the semester, Claudia gave me cause for nothing but worry with her broken curfews and plummeting grades. Then one evening before school let out for the summer, she surprised me by joining us for dinner.
"The school's giving modeling classes this summer." For once, Claudia had started a conversation.
"Oh, really?" I tried to sound casual. "Would you like to go?"
"Yeah," she said, then looked down at her plate. "But it costs money."
"Don't worry about the money," I said. Maybe, Lord, modeling will help Claudia feel better about herself. "We'll come up with a way for you to go."
"Really?" Her eyes flickered with an excitement even her practiced toughness couldn't conceal, and I knew that I would see to it my granddaughter took these classes that were so important to her. To cover the tuition, my husband and I used our savings, and Claudia's aunts and uncles pitched in too.
The modeling course had Claudia eager to go to school, and I hoped this would extend to her other classes in the fall. She stayed home more at night, trying out different outfits and hairstyles. As the summer went on, her baggy pants were replaced by dresses. She pulled her hair back neatly and stopped using the black lipstick. I was thrilled to see the transformation in Claudia, especially the new confidence in her walk.
But when she started her freshman year at Desert View High School, it became clear that this change didn't go as deep as I'd hoped. She made friends with kids even she knew better than to bring home-the ones who grow up to be the kind of people you steer clear of on the street because their eyes are as cold and dead as their dreams.
How could I rest when my granddaughter was in danger of becoming like that? I was back to pacing the kitchen at night until she came home. "Not again," she muttered once when she saw me waiting up for her.
"Claudia, where were you?"
She started walking down the hall.
I followed, saying, "I ask only because I worry about you."
"Well, I can take care of myself just fine," Claudia said. "Why won't you just give up, Mama?" She went into her room quickly and closed the door.
"I could never give up on you," I said, clinging to the fact that she'd called me Mama. Maybe I had touched, just barely, a part of the Claudia I once knew. "Don't you see that, mi'ja?"
I didn't hear anything from the other side of the door. So I went to God. Even if I couldn't reach my granddaughter, maybe he could. Lord, I asked, please tell Claudia for me: It breaks my heart that you go around like someone who has not a hope in the world. You have so much. You have the good mind and strong body God gave you. You have people who love you. "Be strong," I kept telling myself like I had once told my daughter.
One night early in the new year, I waited up for Claudia until I was nearly sick with anxiety. When she finally walked in, I broke down. "Claudia, this can't go on. I'm terrified you're throwing your life away on the streets." My tears spilled over. "The thought of losing you . . . " I covered my face with my hands. "I can't take it. I love you too much."
The only sound you could hear in the kitchen was my own crying. But when I caught my breath again and looked up, I saw Claudia's eyes filling with tears. Her whole body started shaking with sobs.
I reached out. Sighing, she fell into my arms. "I'm sorry, Mama," she whispered. "I don't want you to hurt for me."
"I don't want you to hurt anymore either," I said. "I know it might seem that your family let you down. But give us a chance. We'll show you we are still here for you." I stroked her hair. "Mi'ja, I will always be here to love you." Claudia wept, wetting my blouse with her tears as if she were letting out all the feelings she'd been keeping inside. Long after the tears stopped flowing, we held each other, until the canyon of silence between us disappeared into our embrace.
That Sunday Claudia was dressed for church before I was. I couldn't help sneaking glances at her listening to the sermon beside me. Thank you, God, that my granddaughter has come back to me.
For the first time since she came to live with me, Claudia really tried to make a new life for herself. She joined the youth choir at church. Later she moved to the adult choir. "I know you like singing with the other kids, Claudia," I said. "Why did you switch?"
"I feel bad for the older folks, Mama. No one wants to join their choir, so I did to keep them company."
I gave her a hug. "Mi'ja, you have never made me more proud."
Claudia began to bring friends home after school, friends she was clearly pleased to have me meet. In the spring one of the girls talked her into trying out for the tennis team, even though she'd never played before. "I'll drive you home after practice," her friend coaxed. I gave my blessing and Claudia's uncle got her a used racket. "How did it go?" I asked Claudia after the first practice.
"I'd thought tennis was for wimps, but I like it. I'm not any good, though. I hit the balls all over the place."
"Keep trying," I said. "You'll get better, I know it."
Claudia spent hours on the tennis court practicing. One day she came home so excited. "I made the team!" she cried. "The coach said he just couldn't turn down someone as motivated as I am. He told me I have a lot of potential." Still Claudia's tone was tentative, reminding me that she was just beginning to learn to believe in herself.
When her friend dropped out of tennis, I worried she might take a step back, but the coach took over driving her home after practice. Claudia introduced us. "Mama, this is my coach, Stacy Haines." His Spanish was not much better than my English, so we just shook hands. In his gaze, there was a strength and sincerity that I liked right away. I had a feeling Coach Haines would be good for my granddaughter.
He turned out to be great for her-for her tennis, and more important, for her self-confidence. He got her working as hard on her studies as she did on the court, and by the spring of her junior year, she had made the honor roll. "Coach said if I keep improving my grades along with my game, I might get a scholarship to college," Claudia told me one night as she sat down to study after dinner. "College, Mama, can you believe that?"
"With hard work and with God, I believe you can do anything, mi'ja."
The smile my granddaughter gave me could have lit up the entire desert sky for all the joy in it, and I thought, This is the Claudia I know!
This is the young woman I knew was there beneath the gang-girl façade and could not give up hope on: the one who went on to graduate in 1998 as captain of the Desert View High tennis team and Tucson's Student-Athlete of the Year, who keeps making her old coach and her family proud as a tennis player and education major at Stetson University, who is living up to the promise that God saw in her all along. This is Claudia Meza, my granddaughter, who tells me every chance she gets, "I love you, Mama."
I have the feeling she knows what the answer in my heart is: "Not any more than I love you, mi'ja."
Guillerma proudly reports her granddaughter, Claudia, is playing great tennis. Now she has an athletic scholarship at Stetson University in Florida, but things didn't come easy. "When I first arrived here, I could beat only one other player," Claudia says. "Now I'm third on the team in wins." We weren't surprised when Claudia told us her favorite player is Andre Agassi. He's also had some rough years before tennis got him back on the right track. "Yeah," Claudia says, "and he's originally from Vegas too!"
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