My grandma

My grandma was 91 when she decided it was time to go this past Friday, February 13. She tried it once, but the doctors brought her back. So she tried it again a few hours later.

Her body was done - hell, she'd had a great ride in it. She lived life on her own terms, not always conforming to the rules of society in a time when women were supposed to, and in a country that demanded it.

I found out yesterday that her favorite dessert was "crema volteada" - a creamier, richer version of the traditional flan, and one of my personal favorites too. I don't know what her favorite color was. But I can recall with pinpoint accuracy her smell, and I know the feel of her skin.

She was a sassy little thing, with white hair that crowned her head (something she passed on to me). She always walked with her head held high, spine rod-straight, attitude in her stride. We used to think of her as the "rules" grandma - we had to be proper, we had to behave... she wasn't the fun one growing up. But she sure was fun in the later years.

She loved us. Of that, I have no doubt. I remember her sending us a little bit of money for our birthdays, here and there - five, ten bucks. It warmed the heart to have her do this, knowing her resources were ridiculously limited.

At 69, she won a Merengue dance contest. At 70, she had triple bypass surgery and spent a few days in ICU complaining to whomever could hear her - it didn't matter if they weren't listening. At 71, I found her on a TV news report on assisted living facilities - most of her contemporaries were sitting for a show. She was part of the show, kicking her legs up a-la Rockettes in an aerobics routine that told me she still had long to go.

She wasn't an easy woman. She was fiercely independent (maybe she passed that on too...), and always insisted she could take care of herself. Along the way she fell a couple of times, once taking public transportation, and broke bones, yet she still told everyone to back off, she could handle herself. OK. So she was also stubborn.

In the later years, she started feeling her age, but her mind was sharp as a tack, and her vanity remained intact. Arthritis slowed her body down. Except when no one was looking, and back would come the sassy little thing, in one and a half inch heels, head held high. Her hearing deteriorated significantly. Some of it was physical; some of it was voluntary. I was held to secrecy on that one.

She was a devout of the Virgin of Fatima, to whom I owe a rosary in my abuelita's memory. She prayed daily, devotional in one hand, rosary in the other. The first hour of her day was for the Lord. The second hour of her day she spent in the bathroom. A fact that drove us insane growing up, when she would stay with us. But there was no rushing the primping process, and she wouldn't come out until every hair was in its place. We learned early on to hold the urge to pee.

A few years ago, my aunt and my mom discovered grandma had been at one time "Karina." A sexy, sassy exotic dancer - not exotic like now. A much tamer version. She also worked as an assistant in a circus. My grandma was no saint, but she was definitely colorful. The stories she could have told...

She didn't have an easy life, but that didn't seem to bother her. She was terrified of cancer, so God saw to it that she wouldn't find out she had metastasis before he called her away. Her vanity survived until the end, as grandma passed away gently in her hospital bed, never having to have suffered the ravaging effects and agony of a prolonged death.

I thought I had a couple more years. I thought she'd get to meet my girls - sassy, independent little things. I hope she can see them now and know that I will miss her smell and her laughter.

My grandma had soft skin. The softest hands I've ever felt. She rubbed them with lime and sugar to keep them that way.

Looking back...

Life has a strange way of pushing us forward, and at the most unexpected moment, pulling us back. Just when we think we've grown beyond the holds of the past, we stumble upon a note, a message, a memory from a time that's long gone by. And we look back at our perfect memories. 

I find myself looking back right now and wondering about so much. I don't wonder about the what ifs, because there really is no point. My life is what I have now, and what I make it (hey, that's a Hannah Montana moment for you... eek!) But the life I once had holds the key to who I used to be. And there are times when I miss that girl.

It's too complicated to explain in two or three paragraphs, within the constraints of a blog. Too personal to share with the world thanks to the window of the Internet. I'm just looking back into what was twenty years ago. I miss the pieces of me that are held by others who were such a central part of my life then. I miss the pieces of me that hold together my past and my present, and that are part of the person I've become. 

Life moves forward. The lessons are part of the road that shapes us constantly. And sometimes along that road, we leave pieces of ourselves that can never be taken back. They belong to the road, they belong to others. They no longer belong to us. 

In her own words...again

I was on the phone with our friends Bob and Janice, trying to ease Janice's worries about leaving their new baby at daycare, so I had this conversation with Katarina for Bob and Janice to hear:

"Katy, do you like your daycare?"
"Yes"
"Do you like your teachers?"
"Yes"
"Do you like to go to your daycare and see your teachers?"
"Yes"
"And what do you do at the daycare?"
"I pee my pants"

Ugh...

It's gray...

and beautiful!

I have a dear friend who used to talk about "El Encanto de lo Gris" - or literally translated, the enchantment of gray. I used to think he was crazy, but then I did love his quirkiness.

It took me years and a bout of nostalgia to look through his eyes, although at that point I was away from my native Peru. I remember sitting in a hallway at Cypress College looking through a floor-to-ceiling window at the rainy day. It was cold and wet, and very, very gray. And it hit me like it had never before. It was, indeed, beautiful.

The bricks were a different shade of red - intense and powerful, set against the backdrop of green leaves from trees whose trunks had darkened with the water. Everything, somehow, seemed to come alive. In contrast with each other, nature and buildings stood in the rain full of what seemed to me was life. Vibrating, demanding to be seen, and beautiful in their own right.

The rain cleans, and somehow it cleansed me. That moment alone stands out in my memory as one of incredible sadness and powerful self-awareness. I missed so much in that instant, and at the same time I was given so much.

Winter has never been the same since. When it rains, I get past the cold and the wet, and I remember that moment of powerful epiphany. Not just because I looked at the beauty of my surroundings, but also because it reaffirmed for me the belief that some of the most beautiful things in life are found in those unexpected moments, when we finally open our eyes and become aware of the gifts that surround us day in and day out.