Andy, a Cousin from Grandma's Side

My mother arrived in Weslaco in the late 30's. She first lived in the west side of Main Street, just north of the railroad tracks. One of the neighbors there was Santos Fuentes, the brother of my grandmother Josefa (Fuentes) Lopez. He was a widower with only one daughter, Anita Fuentes. When she graduated from high school, she took a job with her Aunt Juanita, who was in charge of cleanup at the only local hotel in Weslaco, one of the first buildings in Weslaco to be several stories high. Since the Rio Grande Valley was a tourist attraction, important people came to stay there in winter, such as Ty Cobb.
Although after I was born in 1944, my parents moved to the east part of the then small town, out near the city limits, they still continued to see Santos Fuentes and his daughter often. By then Anita had married, but was separated shortly after, or maybe before her baby son was born. The story was the man was married in Mexico and his family came and got him.
Anita's son,Andres Zamarron, grew up knowing us as part of his family. My mother was his babysitter sometimes.
Tia Anita, as I used to call her was very good with a camera, and took all our family pictures on important events of the family. She took pictures of my First Communion, my graduation from parochial school from the eight grade, my senior prom and finally my graduation from high school.
In 1963, she moved to Santa Barbara, California. her last gift to me was making her son Andy give me a small Kodak camera. She was a very nice person, always looking out for others. She wanted to be sure we continued taking pictures. She also kept contact by mail with my mother and even with me when I married and moved away fron Weslaco. Often she would send me huge boxes filled with stuff such as jackets, clothes and costume jewelry.
I still remember a red double breasted carcoat, with brown barrel like buttons. I still own a pair of tiny black and white shell earrings she once sent me. After I had my kids, she would send me toys and yarn for me to crochet stuff for them. With all the moving I did at that time I lost track of her.
After I learned to use the computer in 2000, I began looking for her and I thought I had found her in 2003, and I wrote her a letter to an address I found in Woodland, California. I got an answer from her son, Andy, telling me she had died 5 years before after a long illness. He had been her sole caretaker and had felt all alone without family relatives other than his wife and was very happy to have found me. We have stayed in contact by mail and phone since then, and we finally saw each other via webcam a couple of months ago, when he started using his new laptop computer. He also saw my youngest son the same way.