Part 1: Intro
Sometimes, I think I'm cursed…
Narrated a young boy as his story was told in the papel picado hanging over his family's home for Dia de Los Muertos.
Because of something that happened before I was even born. See…
A long time ago, there was this family.
On the papel picado, a mixed species family of three gathered round in a hug. They consisted of a father fox, a mother rabbit and their rabbit looking hybrid daughter. The Papá, he was a musician. The father fox strummed his guitar beside his smiling wife when their little daughter came rushing in, eager to play with her father. He of course, happily took her in his arms and twirled the happy kit in the air.
He and his family would sing and dance and count their blessings.
But he also had a dream, to play for the world…
Despite the loving, close connection the little family had, the father fox moved past his family with his guitar in paw on the papel picado, heading toward a sea of paws and hooves - ie, his adoring fans.
And one day, he left with his guitar... and never returned...
On a dark, black papel picado, the father fox moved past his family, holding his guitar. He kissed his wife and daughter good-bye then left. His little daughter and wife watched him go with sad faces.
And the Mamá...
The mother rabbit's sadness shifted to anger and she slammed the window shutters shut.
She didn't have time to cry over that walk away musician.
The mother rabbit promptly picked up every last musical instrument in her home and tossed them out the window like day old trash.
After banishing all music from her life, she found a way to provide for her daughter.
The mother rabbit scooped up her daughter and moved them forward with their life.
She rolled up her sleeves, and she learned to make hats.
The mother rabbit took a hat, observing it. After some time, she took some wooden head measuring blocks and a blocking machine and began making hats.
She could've made candy, o-or fireworks! Or sparkly underwear for wrestlers! But no...
She chose hats.
The mother rabbit fashioned a hat for her daughter which made the young hybrid looking bunny extremely happy that she broke out in dance. As the years passed, the now grown hybrid wore a new hat and began helping her mother make them.
Then she taught her daughter to make hats.
The fox-bunny hybrid then introduced a shy striped male fox-hare hybrid to her mother.
And later, she taught her son-in-law.
Some time later the young hybrid pair had a few kids. They played around with the hats their parents and grandmother would make.
Then her grandkids got roped in! As her family grew, so did the business.
The mixed species family hung up a sign in the shape of a sombrero with an 'H' on it. The business was indeed flourishing with each new addition to the family.
Music had torn her family apart, but hats held them all together.
The mother rabbit smirked and stood proud at all she had accomplished despite her husband walking away on her.
You see, that rabbit was my great-great-grandmother, Mamá Judy. She died way before I was born. But my family still tells her story every year on Dia de los Muertos...the Day of the Dead.
Several more years later, an ofrenda filled with photos from the mixed breed family stood tall on Dia de Los Muertos. At the top of the ofrenda, was an old photo of the Hopps family matriarch herself, Mamá Judy. Though the photo was sepia tinted, Mamá Judy was a beautiful gray rabbit with amethyst colored eyes. She appeared to be somewhere in her mid twenties or so when the photo was taken. In it, her former fox husband stands beside her, wearing a white mariachi uniform - but his head is missing. Torn off the photo, really - for obvious reasons.
In the photo with them, and sitting on Mamá Judy's lap, was their little rabbit looking hybrid daughter, who appeared to be somewhere between two to three years old when the photo was taken.
And her little girl, she's my great-grandmother, Mamá Felicia. But we like to call her Mamá Feliz for short.
They say she was always a very happy little girl, so everyone just started calling her Feliz, which means 'happy'.
In the distance, a withered old rabbit-like hybrid's reflection reflects off of the little hybrid's photo. The old hybrid is none other than the little hybrid herself, Felicia, but now all pruny, wheel-chair bound, and with more gray hairs covering her originally red fox patterned fur.
A young rabbit-like hybrid boy with red fox fur, dark brown eyes, black and white tipped ears, paws and tail, hopped on over to her to give her a kiss on the cheek. "Hola, Mamá Feliz."
"How are you, Phillip?" replied the old hybrid to her great-grandson.
Actually, my name is Miguel, narrated the young hybrid. Mamá Feliz has trouble remembering things. But it's good to talk to her anyway.