02 October 2009

CATALINA LAO (BETO BORJA - IN MEMORIAM Sept. 26th, 1997)


BETO B...was...is Pop's younger brother. Taller, browner, smoother, louder, quieter...more fierce. more heated...more bottled up in more space. As I remember him, he was strong, quick to laugh and quick to cut you off. Delicate, wonderful hand writing. A passion for color, the finer things in life, like a beautiful box of new paintbrushes. He loved to make me laugh. And when he found what worked, he didn't let up. I remembered him every time his daughter, my cousin, Paula Catalina, would come over for Sunday lunch when I was visiting family in Colombia in 2007. She was 15 at the time. She had turned into a finely coiffed, caramel colored pair of legs and lip gloss. She frequented the mall and stayed close by her mother, Beto's true and maybe only love. When I first saw her, I remembered how messy, and how unkempt I felt. I remembered being ten years old, and seeing her enter the world in 1990-91, when Beto and Ana Paula had moved to San Francisco and were living on Dolores Street. I saw them, and the baby Paula Catalina when I went to visit Pops in San Francisco every other weekend. And when I saw her in Colombia a few years ago I realized that she was always going to be closer with her Mother's side of the family, of course - no fault of hers. She was so young when Beto died. I remember one photo of him in her room, that Pop took. I remember the sense that it is almost impossible but completely expected of us to live without the people we love...either because they are gone, or because they are gone...I remember seeing Paula Catalina struggle with the volatile and passionate, free-reigned nature of our baby cousin, Pablo. And I remember her struggling to see our own Grandmother so old, and so frail, and so close to the edge. And I remember trying to play 'the clown' when I sensed that I was dealing with a fortress of a human being. I remember her only speaking in Spanish around and to me even though she understood everything I said to her mother in English. I remember her looking at me, trying to find family. But alas - too foreign. Too curly. Too odd. And I remember wanting to talk about Beto with her, but not knowing how to go there. I remember telling my Pop to call her often, and speak with her about Beto, subtly, as he is the only way she could ever really access this side of her family. But most of all, I remember her nature, even without her father she is: proud, confident, inaccessible...beautiful, bossy, moody, torrential...the only daughter tyrant of a wonderful union. She will learn to use this power benevolently.

She gets all of these traits from the Borja side...and she knows it. So here is Beto cutting his older brother's hair...she was already living...see?

(photo by Laura Paull--who one time sat on the dock of the bay with Beto)

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