"It's the largest get-well card in the Southwest," said Manuel Acosta in describing his mural recently unveiled in the lobby of the new La Fe Community Medical Center at 700 S, Ochoa in South El Paso.
     That it may be, but it is so very much more - a painted tapestry of love, of honor and pride, of joy and life, a history of the clinic and a reflection of the artist, himself.
     This story probably should begin with La Fe, itself born of the desperate need of people for a place in which to obtain health care with dignity. They had none, most were poor, all could be helped.
     Originally known as the Father Rahm being its original guiding light, the service opened in 1968 for one night each week in one room of the worst tenement in South El Paso, the Six Holes of Hell.
     That terrible place, in which hundreds, even thousands, of people hoveled over the years, is gone, and the clinic has grown as it has been moved from place to place. Until last month, La Fe Clinic was on St. Vrain Street, in 3,400 square feet where 60,000 patients were seen last year.
     It opened July 17 on Ochoa, in 21,000 square feet, with a full staff of medical doctors, dentists, nurses, therapists, nutritionists and counselors. It offers a full complement of health services and works closely with the City-County Health Unit, Thomason General Hospital, University of Texas at El Paso College of Nursing and Texas Tech University Regional Academic Health Center.
     But it is more than a health clinic. It is a community center of which everyone is proud. It is a home of help to which everyone goes with all kinds of problems. Financed by government funds, private foundations and individual supporters, patients pay what they can, happy to do so. After all, La Fe belongs to them, and this is quickly felt in the new clinic.
     While much of this is reflected in Acosta's mural - 5 1/2 by 16 feet, acrylic on masonite - it also tells the artist's story and his love for and understanding of the Mexican culture.
     In bright colors, especially blues, greens and pinks, Acosta mingles graceful curves of figures with angular objects to tell his story of life in South El Paso.
     He begins on the right with the earliest form of medicines, the herbs, contrasted with the modern equipment in the new clinic, symbolizes the passing of time. This is completed on the far left with a painting of the first man to walk on the moon.
     Clinic director Pete Duarte is depicted holding an Acosta painting of Chihuahuita, the special little neighborhood in the barrio to which Manuel was brought from Chihuahua at the age of 1 by his mother and where thy lived for some years.
     Then there's Rahm and a self-portrait of Acosta painting the mural, in front of which are seated two women in mantillas, chatting behind the traditional fan.
     "An important activity of Mexican women is conversation. This symbolizes communication, so here I have them just really going at it," Acosta said.
     There are many figures, some known and recognizable, who have played important roles in the clinic - two of its first volunteer doctors, housing activist Carmen Felix, two grocers who have always been generous with food for patients with that need, women instrumental in its founding and growth, two young guitarists from Juarez symbolizing music and the interaction of South El Paso and that city.
     The central figure is obscured by the artist in the photograph accompanying this article. She was Acosta's grandmother and he painted her holding a newborn baby and surrounded by smiling young children to symbolize the generations and the renewal of life.
     "My grandmother was the essence of the Mexican women - stoic, strong, a midwife who had many children of her own, a great force in my life," Acosta said.
     Then there is the soldier in uniform, a nephew who fought in Vietnam. This reminds Acosta of himself, a veteran of four years in the air Force during World War II. Like many other Mexican-Americans who fought in that and other wars, he was not a U.S. citizen. He has clippings of letters he sent to Stars and Stripes asking why he was not granted U.S. citizenship although he was fighting.
     "I finally received a letter from a U.S. consul in France asking if I could come to Paris to discuss my citizenship. By that time, I was already back in El Paso whooping it up," he said.
     One day he walked into the El Paso county clerk's office and began the successful procedure.
     In the mural, the painting behind the grocer depicts his tribute to the Rio Grande, which plays such an important role in the lives of people of South El Paso and the entire area.
     But the centerpiece of the work, Acosta says, is the table covered with food and wine and graced on one side with the large basket of brightly colored paper flowers. No matter how poor, he said, food and beautiful flowers are part of family life. The bowl of green and blue grapes twisted around each other symbolizes DNA, the chain of atoms we are made of, he said.
     And on the floor beneath is even his dog and a cat. Acosta claims he has painted a mouse into the mural but no one has found it. It symbolizes the sense of humor for which the artist is noted.
     "I tried to capture the spirit of this neighborhood, from the old to the new . . . I was challenged to do this work for the new building by observing the old building where there were 10 people waiting in every room yet they were being healed. In the new building, I wanted to give them a sense of closeness, the giving of dignity to every person, with space in which to breathe and be comfortable."