I'm going to go back a long time. At the time I was 14, the daughter of a Baptist preacher and a school teacher mother. I had younger brother and a younger sister. We lived in the south and any contact with black people or latinos was strictly forbidden. We went to different schools. This is the way it was.

A boy came to my school, he didn't look latino but he was, he barely spoke English, he was there because his father was at the University getting his Phd. He sat beside me in class, and it was pretty evident to all that he had a crush on me. My mother on hearing this was hard and fast about the fact that I was not to speak to him, he was a stranger in town, he was from Latin America regardless of his appearance, and he had to be Catholic.

Late in the fall I went to a Jr. Varsity basketball game with some girlfriends. One of them had a boyfriend on the team. To everyone's surprise this boy came to the game, and my friends invited him to come sit with us. They made room for him right beside me. Halfway through the first quarter one of my friends took his arm and put it around my waist, and told him to hold me tight. I was petrified, if my mother found out I was going to be in hot water. But I didn't move, I just let him hold me, and he held me tight against him. We didn't even speak.

I got uncomfortable, and I asked him for permission, so I could go to the restroom. He said OK, and decided to escort me, which wasn't my plan. He waited for me to come out of the restroom and quickly put his arm around my shoulders and we walked back to the game. He spoke to me, slowly and told me he knew my name and repeated his name to me. We didn't go back to the bleachers because we walked outside, and around the building where he stood me agains the wall to talk to me and touch my face.

How it happened I don't know, but I found myself under him on the grass and he was pulling down my underwear from under my skirt. My legs went around him, and he pulled his pants down and I was no longer a good girl. I remember hearing the music from my piano recital, and then I came back to, and he was stroking my hair and kissing me gently on the lips. He got up off me and helped me up and acted as look out while I pulled on my underwear and he adjusted his pants.

We went back slowly to the gym, holding hands and got back at half time. I sat with him the rest of the game, but asked him to please not go outside with me because my mother was going to pick me up and I didn't have permission to see him.

We were married the following March, four months pregnant. My mother did not go, my father took me to the courhouse, I did not get his blessing or even his prayers. I was now his wife, and because he had five more brothers and sisters and they lived in a three bedroom house, he came to live with us.

I am 62 now, and I have lived a long life with him. We had several more children, managed our way through college, built a business which we just sold. All our kids have college degrees, and my very first child, a girl, born from that crazy day at the basketball game is my very closest child.

In spite of how my adult life started, I have been blessed. I could never have asked for a better husband, or a more beautiful family.

I have never been ashamed of my name, it is Mrs. Garza.