When I was a young child I was filled with a sort of spastic and unleashed energy that was greater than typical to most young people. My parents would find themselves exhausted, though never explaining this to me for fear of me being even more uncontrollable, from trying to entertain me constantly. Soon after my first words, I became a frantic talking-machine, who laughed frequently at things that were not especially funny and was curious about bizarre and almost frightening events. My first obsession, that I remember clearly was of Tornadoes and I was convinced that in the future I would spend my days sitting next to Helen Hunt in a ramshackle pick-up truck chasing after these monstrous storms in the name of Science, God, and America.

I was raised with the help of an incredible woman named Lila, or frequently called “comadre” by the bilingual elders of my family, and even Dominga, which was her name, and in Spanish can also mean Sunday. She was my nanny, baby-sitter, honorary grandmother, friend, and she took over when my parents went to work- my mother was an educator, and my father an environmental biology major at the time, had a sporadic schedule that made little sense to my infantile mind.

Because of Lila’s caring nature and the fact that she was privy to and quite masterful at handling my wild and seemingly endless supply of energy, she usually succumbed to all of my reasonable requests. This usually entailed simple things, like coaxing her into letting me have a dr. pepper or eat ice cream for breakfast atop the kitchen cupboards with a spatula. One day, after learning the proper method for using the VCR I announced that we would be starting an exercise regimen and that she was to do exactly as the tape said. Understand that I was not being bratty, but rather this seventy-odd year old woman had never demonstrated any weakness or inability to help carry out my plans. She would smile and talk in her charming voice while dragging me behind her in a red radio-flyer wagon the mile from the highway to my family home nestled in the hills of the New Mexico Mountains, and if she ever complained once, she never did so in front of me or my parents.

Lila and I started the tape that afternoon, in my living room and looked with interest at the insanely dressed 90’s work out gurus in their neon lycra body suits. They smiled, and told us all about consulting our doctor’s before beginning the program if we experienced any medical problems. I didn’t think to check then, but I’m sure there was an expression of fear across my keeper’s face.

Because I was so convinced that ‘normal’ toddlers did this sort of thing, I didn’t hesitate to jump into the routine, jumping and laughing, only stopping to announce that we were doing something wrong, or that Lila needed to pick up the pace. It’s hard now to think about it, and realize the bravery of an old woman to enter this fitness program with me. After the tape was over, I immediately lost interest and went to entertain myself elsewhere in the house, leaving her to recover in the living room and probably watch the daily airing of her favorite soap opera. I would go into my room and play with my toys, creating elaborate plots for each of them, in an operatic and block buster fashion, I have always been slightly intoxicated by grandiose theatrical gestures.

The next morning my mom was readying herself for another day in what I then naively believed was the quaint and delightful life of a teacher, when she suddenly became anxious, looking at the clock and noting that Lila had not yet arrived. This was unusual for a woman who usually showed up at our house, allowing enough time for a fun and often gossipy, though entirely harmless conversation with my mom. My mom then called her, on the bulky black plastic phone that every family had in the mid 90's.

After the conversation had ended and my mom had apologized a million times for something I couldn’t quite guess, she walked over to where I was watching cartoons and smiled. Her eyes got wide, and I knew I was about to be scolded. “Cody,” she said calmly, “what did you do?” I didn’t understand again, certainly she couldn’t have known that I accidentally swallowed a marble beneath the breakfast counter the day before or that I had a paralyzing fear of our house being eaten up by a twister. She looked at me again and was grinning, she put her hand on her forehead in the frustrated but not angry way she often did when she was dumbfounded by me. “Did you make Lila do aerobics with you yesterday until she could hardly walk?”

Over the phone, Lila explained that she was running late because she was so incredibly sore from the work out the day before. Though we laugh about it now, and our dear Lila has passed on, the lesson behind this is clearly that even a seventy-something steel magnolia has a breaking point, and that only a small boy full of infinite animation could figure it out.