Hurricane Celia
Elizabeth N. Flores
April 5, 2026
We raced to Spohn Hospital,
with Dad yelling over and over
This damn hurricane,
the baby will not be born in the car!
He could reassure Mama and me all he wanted, but
I saw how hard he gripped the steering wheel
with both hands.
So differently than how he usually
steered with his left hand,
his right hand free to drink his coffee
and switch from English to Spanish language radio stations.
I was twelve then, and had never seen
true fear on my father’s face.
Mama went into labor at the house,
no time to drop me off at Grandma’s.
Mama and I were scrunched in the back seat.
I was tucked against the door, Mama was sprawled
with her head on my lap.
Moaning, sweating and panting,
Mama looked up at me. Breathing hard,
she still managed a slight smile.
You sure will have lots to write about
in your diary tonight, mi hita.
Mama knew my diary was everything to me.
That night I described that day in rich detail.
Mama lying in her hospital bed,
cradling my new baby brother, Mateo,
who had such a full head of hair
my father laughed that he already needed a haircut.
Dad and two men hugging each other in the hallway.
All strangers, but they shared a bond.
Their children were born
during the destructive Celia.
The nurses watching over me in the waiting room,
the kindness they showed me.
While I was eager to write about
the birth of my baby brother,
there was something that happened that day
I could not bring myself to write about.
As we drove to the hospital,
we passed a store with boarded windows,
and there was a family banging on the front door,
all of them screaming Let us in! Let us in!
A man inside the store opened the window blinds
and yelled back, No room, sorry!
before slamming the blinds shut.
Dad couldn’t have seen what happened,
he was looking straight ahead,
swerving to miss stalled cars,
broken branches,
and shattered glass on the street.
I knew Mama saw that desperate family.
When she briefly lifted her head to look out the window,
I heard her say That poor family, out in the storm.
And she quickly made the Sign of the Cross,
which she always did when she felt sorry for someone,
as if she might speed up God’s blessings for them.
I felt ashamed that I didn’t want to write about that family pleading for help.
For years the die-hard locals
observed the anniversary of Hurricane Celia
with strong emotions.
I thought a lot about what I learned that day.
There can be despair between my world
and the larger world that can be confusing.
But there was no shame in not having figured
out at the age of twelve how to balance the two worlds.
Elizabeth N. Flores, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, taught for over 40 years at Del Mar College and was the college’s first Mexican American Studies Program Coordinator. Her recent poems can be found in the TPA Quarterly, the Windward Review, the Texas Poetry Assignment, The Senior Class: 100 Poets on Aging, edited by Laurence Musgrove, and ¡Somos Tejanas!: Chicana Identity and Culture in Texas, edited by Jody A. Marín and Norma E. Cantú.
