The Chilean Wonder Woman

I have posted about my suegra P. before and how wonderful she is, but I didn't touch on her superhero traits. She is a Jack(lyn?)-of-all-trades. In her family, they (we) all play a game at almost every family gathering where everyone has to go around and list one "profession" or responsibility she's assumed without repeating any of them . The list is endless (seamstress, nurse, butcher, carpenter, vet, therapist, grill master, life coach etc) and the point of it is to show that there seems to be nothing this woman can't do. Common sense doesn't even begin to describe her approach to EVERYTHING. She's just one of those people who always knows what to do in any situation and yesterday, I witnessed her newest skill as a bombera (firewoman).

I was walking from the market with P. and my cuñada when when P. said, "I smell something burning...it smells like plastic.". Two seconds later she was sprinting down the street and around the corner while my cuñi and I were still trying to figure out what was going on. Once 4 or 5 others dashed around the corner screaming "agua!!! agua!!!". we realized there was a fire. My superhero suegra threw her groceries down, ran into the house next door, dumped their trash out and filled the bin with water and then darted next door to throw it on the kitchen fire in under a minute. I don't think the owners of the house would have realized she had been there if she hadn't told them afterwards. There were several people there before she got there and they were all helping in some way, but no one took action like P. did (including me).

The fire turned out to be a small kitchen fire so it was under control within a few minutes and everyone was OK. The woman who owned the house was crying and obviously very shaken up, but that was to be expected. Everyone else in the house was calmly cleaning up the mess and all of the people from the street went back to what they were doing before the fire. P. came out the house, picked up her bags, and we walked home to eat lunch. She probably would have left it at that, but her daughter and I were amazed by how naturally she ran into the house not knowing how bad it would be (there was thick, black smoke EVERYWHERE). Her children are semi-used to her doing stuff like this, but it still totally blows my mind how quick she is to help ANYONE who needs it.

Not only that, but it's truly a gift that she always seems to do the right thing. I remember her brother telling me a story about the guy next door shooting (and eventually killing) himself and P. running next door to help with whatever happened when she heard the gunshot. My first reaction to a gunshot would probably be something like "take cover" or "hide", but hers is, "go help".

"Go help" seems to be her mantra and she never strays from it. She went with her niece to pick up her furniture after a nasty divorce, she went with her sister to every doctor's appointment when she was going through radiation, her other niece confides in her regularly and seeks her advice and she calls me everyday to make sure there's nothing I need and if I were ever to need any thing, she'd do or get it for me.

She is always the first person to run to any family member with a problem and she's always the first to offer any kind of help. She knows things you only learn through experience and boy, has she experienced a lot.

While I'm geographically very far my family and the important women in my life, it is a great comfort to know I have such a talented and wise woman so close. I have a kick-ass mom at home who can do anything and an awesome sister as well as everything my late Grams taught me, but here I have my Wonder Suegra and I think she's a fine addition to the group of women I admire.