I would daydream that I had a quinceañera. I’m having it right now. I can’t believe it. It’s beautiful.
BROWNSVILLE — She stood at the end of the hallway in her fine dress and bouquet, then walked hand in hand with her handsome escort.
Everyone cheered for Maria Guerrero at Las Jacarandas Adult Day Care at 707 Villa Maria Blvd. as she celebrated her quinceañera in style, with her damas in their gold and burgundy dresses and their chamberlains beside them.
They clapped and exclaimed their adulations; everyone happy for her, the woman with the smiles and the flowers in her hair.
She beamed with the brightness of a teenage girl.
Never mind she turned 75 on Wednesday.
This was her day, a day of which she had dreamed for many years, ever since she missed it while working the fields in the State of Washington so long ago.
“I was 15 years old there,” she said before her party began.
“I would daydream that I had a quinceañera,” she said. “I’m having it right now. I can’t believe it. It’s beautiful.”
We’ve never had this happen in our location before, and she kind of had mentioned that she had never had a quinceañera so we decided to go all out.
As she and her chamberlain in his dignified black suit walked through the large room decorated with Valentine colors and glittering gold, everyone clapped and shouted, “Bravo.”
Music played, festive and joyous, and her finely-clad damas followed close behind with their chamberlains.
Some did a little rhythmic foot work to the music. Their movements, although by necessity a little slower, indicated a skill from a younger time when those feet loved to hit the dance floors and “cut a rug,” as many would say.
They showed the same passion here, and it was good to see.
Now, they all joined hands in two lines, and Guerrero and her partner danced between them in grand style and then turned and danced back again.
Everyone watched, some with passive demeanors, others with fresh smiles and claps of celebration.
And the large, giftwrapped box in front of her easily gave up its treasures of balloons, shawls, hair ties and all things good in the world as is fitting a young girl of any age.
This was a first at Las Jacarandas, but it won’t be the last, said Martha Barrientes, founder.
“We’ve never had this happen in our location before, and she kind of had mentioned that she had never had a quinceañera,” Barrientes said. “So we decided to go all out. It kind of brought up a good point that sometimes they do lack that, so we’re going to start doing an annual quinceañera.”
The chamberlains — escorts — enjoyed the event too.
“It’s very pretty and very memorable,” said Urbano Jimenez, 80. “She didn’t get to do it at one point in time, and now she gets to have it now.”
All the attendees seemed to be in agreement that a quinceañera was a good thing at Las Jacarandas and there should be another one every year.
