An oral story has been inherited in my family for generations. On a May afternoon, the time came for me to receive this heirloom from my grandmother. We traditionally spend our time together by enjoying her beloved plants from her porch in silence. On a blistering afternoon, we found ourselves on her porch swing. The smoke from the cigarette in her hand permeated the fresh air with vogue. She sighed, and so, breaking the silence, she began. “They woke up every morning in what you could call paradise. Paradise was found on the outskirts of Matamoros, Mexico, where peace once reigned. A step outside presented sweet scents from the Rosales and the soothing sound of a rippling resaca. The vast, secluded landscape consists of orange, ebony and mesquite trees. Uneven red cobblestones beneath their feet radiated energy. In the midst of this place was the home of the influential Reyna family. Great, wooden doors on a plastered wall open into a vast room. A boy, a girl, and their grandparents inhabited the ancestral family home. The boy’s delightfully unkempt room, littered with sketches, and brandished a window facing the resaca in which he loved to swim. Rosy walls surrounded the girl’s quaint room; toys and dolls were lined in cabinets. The handsomest room was the grandparents. It had grand, wood furniture, stone floor, elegant chandeliers, and crystalline windows. Thirty-five years later, on the outskirts of Matamoros, continued this paradise. A man, with his wife in mind, walked past the wild trees and Rosales. Despite its chaotic unkemptness, great peace and energy resonated in the landscape. He walked towards the worn, wooden front doors of the abandoned home where he and his deceased love once lived. Her death created an air of melancholic indifference. The door creaked at opening and revealed dull, wooden floors. The man dragged his feet across the threshold and onto the wooden staircase. With his hands on the iron railing, he ma