Miami Herald - Sunday, December 2, 2001
Elena Cabral, ecabral@herald.com

For more than a decade Reyes has worked with people afflicted with HIV and AIDS and the tangle of daily challenges that many of them face: buying time on an electric bill or eviction notice, stealing precious moments for a support group, finding a place to spend final moments with dignity.

At home, where Reyes works a second job as a medical transcriber, the 50-year-old is renowned for her ability to read a book, type and watch television at the same time. When she cooks, she can whip up a batch of perfect rice, peel a potato and prepare a pot of beans without even looking at what she is doing.

As she juggles both jobs, Reyes is raising six grandchildren in the three-bedroom Hollywood home she shares with her husband, George, and her 25-year-old son, Shamar.

"Everything happens according to schedule; if not you'd have total chaos," Reyes says as the buzz of an electric pencil sharpener trumpets the tail end of homework time.

With two grown children of her own, Reyes thought she was entering a somewhat slower phase of her life, but one devastating phone call from her daughter, Lorinia Bahamundi, a year and a half ago changed all of that.

Reyes learned that her 2-year-old grandson, Nicholas Bahamundi, drowned in the family pool at his parents' Miramar home after crawling through a hole in a fence. His six young siblings had to be removed from the home by child-protective services because their disabled parents are no longer able to care for them.

After years of helping the family financially and in other ways, Reyes and her husband had to make a much bigger decision. Reyes gave up plans to go back to college and the couple took all six children into their home.

"They had no clothes, they had nothing, and we started from scratch putting together a household with six children," she said.

Two of the bedrooms became "dormitories," one for the three girls, Bianca, 13, Selenia, 7, and Yasmin, 5, and the other bedroom for the three boys: Wilton, 11, Christopher,9, and Maximilian, 8. The children see their mother on visits but live full time at the Reyes home.

Reyes' 25-year-old son, Shamar Reyes, who moved back into the house about the same time the children arrived, helped out, sharing homework checks and other duties with his father, who does much of the cooking. The family also includes two dogs, two cats, a finch and a parakeet.

That Reyes turned her life upside down for her grandchildren comes as no surprise to her co-workers at Community Health Care CenterOne, where Reyes has worked as a case manager for seven years, volunteering there four years before that. The Bronx native began working with people living with HIV and AIDS after she watched two friends die from the virus in 1989.

"She volunteered with the HIV population probably long before people were willing to do that, when it was more of a taboo," said Stacy Bennett, another case manager at the center. "She went into communities and created support groups and resources where there weren't any, especially for the Spanish-speaking HIV community where the resources are lacking. She made sure they weren't left out."

Reyes' selflessness at home comes with sacrifices. Weekend getaways to the Keys have been put on the back burner. Instead of jewelry, Reyes asked for a dryer for her birthday to keep up with the family's endless loads of laundry.

But there are benefits to this new job. Like the time Wilton received an award for the most-improved child in special education at his school.

"That was a very big sign that what we're doing is the right thing," Reyes said.

Reyes dreams of taking the children to Disney World. The house could use a desk for homework, and bicycles would be a welcomed treat.

But what the family wants most is a headstone for Nicholas, the 2-year-old whose death changed all of their lives. Nicholas is buried in a simple grave in a Hollywood cemetery. The children bring stuffed animals, but those markers never seem to last.

With six children in the house, every day presents a new challenge, but Reyes says her philosophy is to try to take each day as it comes.

"Throughout life we're never ready," she said, wringing out a mop after an unexpected flood under her kitchen sink added yet another task. "But we get ready when we do what we have to do."

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