Nora Angela Ruiz was born on December 31, 1974 to an 18 year old high school graduate named Mina. She’d gotten pregnant during her Senior year, but was able to hide it until after Graduation. Nora’s birth father was a former pastor at her Parish. He was transferred to another Parish many miles away when my parents went to the Archdiocese with a visibly pregnant Mina. My parents had initially offered to adopt Nora, but then they found out I was on the way. So, they became the Godparents and my grandparents decided to raise the baby. They were around 40 when Nora came along. As Mina moved away shortly after having Nora and had very little contact with the family, they decided to treat her as their child, not grandchild.
Nora didn’t know the truth about her parentage until she was 12, when Mina came to visit and told her the truth in front of everyone. Mina then offered to take Nora back to wherever she was living (somewhere off a boring stretch of the 5 past Bakersfield) and finish raising her. My Grandparents told her that she’d have to make a formal request to change the custody agreement. Mina didn’t want to go through the trouble, which made Nora feel horrible. Mina left after a week. She went back to having very little contact with the family.
Nora was furious that she was lied to about where she came from. It didn’t matter that she spent her whole life up until then very well loved and cared for. She experimented with everything she could. The list of experiments and acting out started getting very long in high school. She knew that the only reason she existed was due to her birth father not honoring his vow of chastity. She had half of a degenerate’s DNA–what did that make her? So she started acting like the flawed person she thought she was. She started rejecting the 4 people who had lovingly raised her. My parents had her spend weekends with us, to help my Grandparents avoid dealing with her coming home drunk at midnight when she was still in 8th grade.
Nora’s only refuge was gymnastics, which she’d started at the age of 6. She was quite good at it, and someone in the family always went to her competitions and demonstrations. Gymnastics was the main motivating factor in keeping a B average. Nobody wanted her to stop because she did well in competitions.
Nora hated the fact that she wasn’t my aunt, but my cousin. She lost the title that made her feel superior. (I had relatives she didn’t who could afford to help me with Girl Scouts, playing soccer as a kid, and take me on some great vacations.) I would tell her that she was better at gymnastics than I was at soccer. I even quit after 8th grade so she could be the only athlete. I really felt for her, and wanted her to feel some sense of self-esteem based on what she could do, not where she came from.
Out of us all, the person she hurt the most is Miles. (We all met when we were 8.) They were on-again/off-again from the time they were 13 until senior year of high school. Nora and Miles had a codependent thing going, and I often helped him keep Nora from getting into too much trouble. My parents told me I shouldn’t lie for Nora, so I didn’t. Miles did, and would always take her back when she dumped him for some older guy who was interested in her. Then Nora did the unforgivable–she dumped Miles at Prom and moved away a week later to move in with Mina, who was now further North and near a decent state college, where she competed on the gymnastics team until an injury stopped her career. She then studied Gerontology and started working in nursing homes. She also adopted her mother’s infrequent contact with family. She sent cards to our Grandparents and my parents on every major occasion.
She showed up for both Grandparent’s funerals, bringing drama with her. When our Grandfather died, she got his house. She briefly contemplated moving back until Miles made it clear he would not take her back. Then, she sold the house to his girlfriend Shirley and took off again.