THE PASSING AWAY OF A NOBLE, RIGHTEOUS WOMAN

By Juan Montoya
I first met Lydia King in the early 1980s when we were running a campaign against D.J. Lerma for county commissioner of precinct 1.
In those days political campaigns were family-oriented affairs where the entire barrio went out to support the neighborhood candidate and dance, eat and drink at their pachangas.
There were no robocalls, social media, or mass mailouts.
Her husband, Joe King, hadn't started his campaign sign business full-time, and his small shop off Minnesota Road was the site of the pachanga.
She was in every way the supportive spouse and ran the botana line – un guisado con arroz y frijoles – while the families crowded around and listened to the candidates.
I didn't know it at the time, but Lydia was an Hinojosa, the younger sister of Polo, who worked at Model Laundry with my mom and dad, and the older sister of Joe and El Guero. Polo loved the way my Mom cooked beef costillas and every payday, she would cook up a batch for him.They lived literally across the tracks on 28th Street, in a subdivision notable for all the homes having blue roofing. So did we.
Those were the bad old days of La Southmost. The chucos were at their peak with all the good and bad that the name implies. There was El Truman, El Guayo, and the assorted gangs de la 30, La Lima, La Medina, El Proyecto, etc.
Early in life, Lydia saw what the ravages of the bad old life were. She experienced one of her siblings take his life by his own hand, the weekend drunken binges of the working class men, girls dropping out of school to have families, boys entering the labor force to raise them, etc. In time, she grew up and married Joe and moved away.
Somewhere along the way, she found her Lord. Not just religion, mind you. Hers was a total dedication of body and spirit to her God.
A friend called me yesterday to the funeral service of our friend Joe Hinojosa's sister. It wasn't until we arrived that I found out it was Lydia, our old-time neighbor from down the street on 28th.
We usually kidded Joe because – to his chagrin – we knew that when we visited with him with his sister "era una regañada segura."
She had dedicated her life to take care of her family and to bring people close to her Lord.
Member after member of her congregation gave witness of her spirituality and her unbreakable faith.
There was the neighbor who said it was Lydia who had brought her closer to God. Not only her, but also her 13 siblings, all living close to each other in the neighborhood off Minnesota Road.
Then there was the other member who said it was Lydia who had asked her if she wanted to bring Jesus Christ into her life.
"How much does it cost?" the neighbor recalled asking her with sarcasm.
"Nothing," she said Lydia replied, "It is a gift He has for all His children."
At 78, she had lived a full life in body and spirit and that was all.
Such was the tone of all the brothers and sisters who witnessed at the Treviño Funeral Home.
Even Rolando Aguilar, a former trustee with the Brownsville Independent School District, bore witness to the pillar of faith and witness that was Lydia King.
"We all think that we are going to pass away before our children," he said as he and his wife stood and spoke. "In our case, our daughter suffered an aneurysm in Austin in 1986 and we tried to get there as soon as possible, but could only get a flight early the next day when some passengers cancelled. She hung on for three days while we waited and hoped,"
Aguilar said that at the time of their deepest despair, Lydia walked in the waiting room after having driven all the way from Brownsville and gave them words of hope and love. Even though their daughter died, they never forgot the human touch and soothing words that Lydia brought to them in their suffering, their greatest moment of need for comfort.
"It didn't matter that we were Catholic and she was not," he said. "When we leave we are all going to the same God, Catholic or not."
Her pastor spoke at the end and the congregation's witness and said he wished he had seen Lydia at the peak of her witness for her faith.
"Prayer doesn't end with death." he said. "It goes on beyond and the prayers Lydia made for all of us will continue past her death."
At the end of the service of celebration, we gave her our friend, and her brother, Joe our condolences and made our way to the packed parking lot. Along the way, we saw an inscription on the back of one of the granite grave markers placed on the lawn of Treviño's. It reads, "Dying is but going home."
Yesterday, Lydia went home.