Let me see where do I begin

                                                          
                                                           "Joaquin Marietta's Gold"
   
  I once inherited a kid, not from a blood relation, but from a friend.  He asked me once if I would take care of his kids if anything ever happened to him.  It's kind of a long story, one which I probably never will blog about. It is relevant to mention that this super rad but very unfortunate girl had no social security number and no proof of her being born here,  I might also need to add that you cannot get health insurance, get a job, have a bank account, attend college, have utilities in your name, get a loan or collect your Dad's death benefits without a social security number.   It took me two and a half years to attain one for her, meanwhile on less than $20,000 a year we had to support a family of five.  I had a toddler, a pissed off five year old, a very distracted husband (third child) a grandmother with a deteriorating frontal lobe who lived two blocks away, a father who had just been diagnosed with cancer, and a very tortured teenager.  Did I mention that I was all of twenty five years old.  I was the hub of everyone's insanity which flowed freely like the Nile.
  I was not stressed out, that would be an understatement the size of the Pacific, I was truly losing it.  I tried so damn hard to unselfishly do the right thing, but the truth is I was truly unequipped to carry that much weight on my shoulders.  So I was crying on the phone to my mother, while digging up the garden, while praying desperately to God to save me somehow, to give me some strength, to send me some sign, anything please God!
   Before I continue I must add another very relevant story, bear with me.  I had this neighbor Gilberto Gonzales, he was about eighty, very kind, old school Mexican.   This entire story is completely true BTW.  One day Gilberto came over and told me about how our monster eucalyptus was giant when he was a child.  How all the houses to the east were orchards, there was a little alley where our fences meet.  He would sleep outside with his pals in the summer, he once saw a ghost in the tool shed that was near our house, she was all in white.  He also told me how he spent his entire childhood digging everywhere all over here, he gestured, searching for the long lost Juaquin Muirieta's Gold.
  So anyway I am praying please god save me, anything help me please!  When my shovel hits something hard.  I work the shovel around to unearth something very very heavy,  GOLD!!!  "GOLD" I yell, "mom I struck gold!"  "What," she asks.  "I struck gold."  "How big is it?" "About three inches, it's a brick, it's so heavy."  She calculated an estimated value, one which was enough to solve all our monetary problems.  Hallelujah I found gold my problems were solved, thank you god.  I run into the house to proclaim our fortune to my family.  Upon examination we decide it's silver not gold, I call my Mom back, she recalculates, Hallelujah, no more money stress, thank you God!  After further examination we discover that the brick of gold is really a bar of lead which has been painted with real gold.  At that very moment I felt the finger of God insert into my chest," HA HA," said the finger.  At that moment I understood all at once, God had a sense of humor, everything was somehow going to be alright because it really didn't matter anyway.  I wasn't alone and money can't solve your problems anyway.  Thank you God, hallelujah.  I keep that gold brick in the window between my kitchen and my living room, right where I cook, next to my garden it's the place I pray the most.  I have since then had money, it really didn't fix anything.  The gold brick has a thick layer of oxidation all over it like the memories of all that pain.  When people ask" what's that?"  I tell them it's my lead brick, it's worth it's weight in gold.