Para Mi Abuela

It's funny, I had recently finished reading Sophie T's rememberance of her grandmother a couple of days ago.

And so, at an indeterminate time in the early morning on November 10th, my grandmother (the Abuela in the subject line) passed away in her sleep, after watching whatever passes for late night entertainment on Univision. (At least she went having a full understanding of whatever was happening on the screen.) She was theoretically 79 (give or take a couple of years. There's some disputing the accuracy of the documentation).

The family's reacting in the numerous ways families do; and for my part I'm recalling the fun stuff, the fond memories and all that, and whatever it is we choose to describe as "feeling her presence" that very much is happening with me right now. Hey, Abuela. Nice slippers.

She's from a simpler time and a simpler place, so a lot of my memories of her are of her in a day coat and slippers, working over the stove, with a cigarette dangling from her mouth. I recall her worrying nature, as well as the coffee cut with condensed milk and buttered hot french bread she'd give to me as a snack when I got home from school in PR.

My favorite memory, though, has to be the hilarious relationship she had with the Tom Hanks/Shelley Long vehicle The Money Pit, the broad physical comedy of which transcended the fact she couldn't speak English. I was fond of the movie myself (need to see how dated it feels now), so the house would watch it whenever it was repeated on HBO, which was very very often.

There we'd be, the sibs and I, laughing at whatever preposterous situation was playing itself out on the screen ("Two weeks," the contractor would say), and my grandmother would come in from the kitchen to see what was what. Inevitably, she'd get caught up in the story, and the next bit of physical comedy would come on, and she'd lose it. Whether it was Hanks falling in the sinkhole, or the tub crashing through the roof, or, spectacularly, the whole scaffolding breakdown scene; by the time the statue took a leak on Hanks' head, she'd be laughing uproariously.

And then, she'd worry about her heart condition, poor thing, and she'd leave the room with tears in her eyes. It never failed. The sibs and I loved her for it.

The last Xmas the fam and I had together, my brother in LA gave her a DVD copy of it. It featured Spanish dubbing. I truly wish I had thought of it first.

Now, I'm crying, so: Adios, Abuela. Te amo, ay dios mio, como te amo. Bendicion. "Que dios te bendiga, m'ijo."