BEDTIME PRAYER

A cousin of my grandma, Carmen Cruz Guzmán, born in 1900, taught me this bedtime prayer, in Spanish :

Cuatro esquinas tiene mi cama,

cuatro ángeles me acompañan.

Jesús, María, José,

Joaquín y Ana.

En vida y en muerte

amparad mi alma.

(Four corners has my bed;

four angels accompany me.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph,

Joachim and Anne.

In life and in death

protect my soul.)

When Auntie Carmen taught me this prayer, she was lying down and she pointed to the four corners of her bed as she said the words "Four corners has my bed."

She came from that generation of Chamorros who said many prayers in Spanish. I learned a lot from her : genealogy, vocabulary, stories. She was never at a loss for things to talk about. We could go on for hours.

Auntie Carmen was my grandmother's cousin on the Gåga (Cruz) side, which is Pérez Cruz (my grandmother was also a Pérez). In this funeral notice, Gåga is misspelled Gaugau. She lived from 1900 to 1989.

It was said that she knew so much that all you had to do was mention your parent's or grandparent's names and she could tell you more about your family and who you were related to than what you knew already.