Leonor Amelia Larde y Arthes

My mom was born in 1932, in San Salvador, El Salvador, but has lived his first years in Guatemala, Guatemala. Her father was Luis Larde y Arthes, dental surgeon, and her mother Leonor Diaz de Larde, who was known as Leonor Larde.

Her father dyed when she was around 14 years old. At 16 he married my father, Rene Coronado Lopez, who was 22 years old. She was only a kid and not prepared really to be married. Her marriage was a failure, specially because the newlyweds were to live with my gran mom, my father's mom, who we named Mama Willie. When I was 2 years old, my mom left the house without telling my father and went to live in San Salvador.

Some years later they try again to be together, just to let my sister come into our lives. They failed again...and finally divorced. She got the custody of us.

As she did not have time to complete her studies in Guatemala, we can say she was an autodidact. She was amazing! With a brilliant mind, good memory and art abilities such as painting, writing, designing, creating show scenes. When the government of El Salvador created teachers jobs for people like her, with abilities to teach, she became a teacher. She completed her studies in due form. Was having good grades in the University.

She worked in the beginning as IBM operator. Then when she was hired as a teacher, she continue on this profession all the long of her life. She was honored once as a Teacher of the Year. She was loved by all her pupils and even now, after her death, all the ones who studied with her still remember not only her teaching skills for her humanity. I do not understand how she managed to help others when we were having so little ourselves!

She came to live in Canada in 1987. In the beginning she wrote me: "How I will survive such coldness" (she had the Reynaud's syndrome). But her wish to be where her children were made the miracle! She came to accompany my two brothers Ulises and Ursus, my sister in low Laura, (married with Ulises), and Tatiana their little child of almost 2 years old, the first niece I could have in my arms!

She was only 55 years old when she arrived in Montreal to live with me. First, she helped my married brother Ulises by babysitting their children, then she came to live with me. She stayed with me until she died. She got a cancer in 2002. When we came back to El Salvador, to pass some time with his brother Mauricio, himself fighting with a cancer, she, who was in remission as per her doctors, became so sick we have to take her to the hospital, where she died October 18th, 2004. What a sorrow!

I remember her as a gifted person and with good sense of humor. A survivor of all personal battles, my first friend, my confident, and my force, a wonderful mother who grow up at the same time as me! We were two kids trying to survive to the effects of war and poverty. Up to now, I remember her words, never quit before trying your best to solve a problem in your life, your work...

In my early years, when we were at the Quinta Praga, our nights were passed memorizing poems, playing poker with beans as reward, singing, dancing... My best years ever!