Hortensia Magdaleno

We gather today to honor and celebrate the life of our mother — a woman born in Mapimi, Durango, Mexico, who carried within her a quiet, unbreakable strength from the very beginning.

She lived her early years across the landscapes of northern Mexico — Mapimí, Ojinaga, Chihuahua, and Juárez — before making her home in El Paso, Texas. It was there she raised five children, loved eleven grandchildren, and built a life entirely on her own terms.

A Life Shaped by StrengthHer early life was marked by pain and hardship and yet, she never let bitterness take root. She was the proverbial optimist, always offering her children words of wisdom, always urging them toward change, toward something better. She turned suffering into counsel, and counsel into love.

A Creator and a CollectorShe was a creator — a seamstress whose hands never rested. She decorated her home with tiny storybook houses until an entire miniature village filled her big window, a world she built piece by piece. She would say she didn't like Christmas, and then put up a tree in every room and spend thirty days after the holiday hunting the sales. That was her — full of beautiful contradictions.

She had televisions in every room, including the bathrooms — and none of us ever figured out why. She loved her garden, even though most of her plants thrived for about thirty days past the warranty period. She saved soft drink coupons like treasures. She filled shelves eleven feet high and thirty feet long with cloth remnants. And in her small freezer, she kept Christmas tamales from one year to the next — some with multiple ice-age freezer rings to prove it.

A Determined WomanIn her mid-sixties, when most people slow down, she started investing in rental property. She had a dream: to one day collect rent instead of paying it. And she did it. She loved to brag about her Big Lots finds and her casino nights. She became a United States citizen late in life, and though she was indifferent about the process, she was deeply proud she got it done.

Her only regret was never having learned to drive. She didn't like to travel or eat at restaurants — probably because she was an excellent cook and saw no reason to settle for less than her own kitchen.

A Kind and Faithful HeartShe was kind. She was generous. She helped her tenants, her friends, and her family — even when a few took advantage of her goodness. She loved her children fiercely and worried most about her two sons who lived closest to her.

She was a devoted Catholic. You could set your watch by her daily readings at her kitchen table. She had only good things to say or nothing at all.

A Peaceful FarewellShe died peacefully, on her own terms — as she lived. She is with her sisters and her family now, in a place where there is no more pain, no more worry.

We love you; we miss you and will carry you with us — always.

Rest in peace.