Newlywed Remembers Kins’ Sacrifices to Keep the Family Together
Ronda Trujillo’s kin stepped up to raise her and her little brother, Steven, when she was 4 years old.
Her mother, at the time, was 21 and liked to party. Her dad was battling alcoholism. (He’s now 16 years sober.)
When her folks split, Ronda’s mother wasn’t prepared to be a parent. So she sent Ronda to live with her Auntie Gina in Denver, Colorado, an hour drive from Greeley, where her brother Steven lived with their grandmother, Evangeline Sandoval.
Auntie Gina later brought Ronda to live with “Grams” and Steven.
Now, over a decade later, the 25-year-old has a lot she’s happy about. For starters, she recently had a wedding where her best friend — Grams, who she also calls “Nana” — walked her down the aisle.
And they did it in style, thanks to a donation from Madeline Gardner’s Morilee line, a leading brand of wedding dresses. Gardner’s gift included the bridal and evening gowns, and dresses for Grams and the bridal party of seven.
“All of her dresses are amazing!” Ronda said. “It was so hard to choose because she has such beautiful work.”
The dress donation was through a partnership between Morilee and Generations United, a national nonprofit that promotes intergenerational connections and advocates for families where grandparents are raising grandchildren.
Ronda found out about the opportunity through a friend, who attended a bridal shower in Denver. There, a coordinator made an announcement that she was looking for brides-to-be who were raised in or affiliated with Kinship Foster Care.
The family-based practice in child welfare helps family members and other supportive adults connected to the family work together to plan in the best interest of a child or youth when they must be temporarily relocated outside of their birth home.
Right away, Ronda came to mind. So her friend told the coordinator she knew someone. The dresses were one less thing Ronda had to stress about.
She often worries about her grandmother’s health. Grams had four open heart surgeries — one when Ronda was a baby and the others when she was in middle school.
On top of that, she had to care for two children she didn’t plan on raising.
“Growing up with my grandmother was hard because my grandmother was a single mother,” said Ronda, who remembers Grams raising them while working fulltime as a case manager at Weld County Human Services and being an on-call victim’s rights advocate with the Greeley police department.
The latter drove Grams to take in Steven when he was a year old.
“She was used to seeing child abuse and neglect,” Ronda recalled. “She didn’t want him to be her next phone call.”
With her always working, Grams relied on other family members — Ronda’s aunties and great-grandmother (Gram’s mom) — to watch Ronda and her brother during those unexpected midnight or 2 am drop offs.
“We were always on the go,” she said. “But she always provided for us.”
Something else Grams provided was moral support. Ronda needed it when she had to pause her EMT courses at AIM Community College to give birth to her daughter. (Ronda’s currently working as a loan officer for homeowners refinancing their homes or rental properties.)
Instead of her situation being a setback, Grams showed Ronda it was a blessing and that life had other plans — something Grams knows all too well.
She’s happy to offer that moral support again when Ronda goes back to school in El Paso, Texas, where her husband, Tony, an Army E4 specialist, is stationed.
In addition to the wedding, another bright spot in Ronda’s life is having an ongoing relationship with her dad. She also reconnected with her mom, who was in and out of her life until she turned 15.
That relationship is “complicated,” as Ronda puts it. They love each other, but the unresolved hurts still remain.
Ronda’s 3-year-old daughter, though, gives them a reason to work through it.
“We put everything behind us for our relationship with Alaylah,” said Ronda, who knows her bright moments go back to Grams.
She remembers her grandmother’s sacrifices to keep the family together, and is thankful.
“If my grandmother didn’t raise me, I don’t know who I’d be or where I’d be,” Ronda said. “It’s a bittersweet thing, to say the least.”
