Letter 11: To The Person Deceased I Wish To Meet

Dear Selena,

 

It’s been almost 20 years since you died, but your memory still live on within my life. Your music has always been associated with my childhood and what I remember of it to be happy. My mom singing and dancing to your songs were one of the few memories that I can remember her being truly happy before things fell apart. But I remember your death on the news to be my first filibuster as a 3 year old. Believe it or not, you hold my first memory.  Someone you loved put out the light you were that beamed throughout Latin America. I’ll never forget my mom’s shocked face saying, “They killed Selena…can you believe this Juan?”

But you never really left my life after that. Once I learned that I was even able to sing, I was singing “No Me Queda Mas”. I didn’t even know Spanish, just like you yet I learned to sing in Spanish before I did in English. Then, I decided to learn about the life you did have when you were alive. And I knew then and there that if I were to have a celebrity role model, it was going to be you. I didn’t care that at the time you had died 10 years ago, you lived in my spirit. I’d listen you your CD’s when life was hard or when I needed something in my life to be real. “ Como La Flor” was my anthem for a long time because my name being Jazmine, I am a flower. Selena, God knows what might have happened and what a large impact you could have had in this world if you didn’t die. Now that I think about it now, you and cooking are now the only things I have left tying me to my culture.

The best part is…you and I are a lot alike. We are both Mexican American. We both don’t know how to speak fluent Spanish but we sing as if we do. We are both singers. We both have a very intense but very loving and supportive family. We both hold the same morals on life and they way we should live it. We love with everything we have. And we love pizza :P I hope that one day, I can be like you and leave the legacy you left for girls like us all around the world.

Thanks for being my inspiration por todo mi vida. Selena, tu vives en mi Corazon. Te amo amiga.

Con todo my mi amor y alma,

 

Jazmine