Mementos are powerful. Take, for example, this photograph I’d taken with my Abuelo Eduardo over 10 years ago. Looking at it is like a time-machine transporting me to that precise moment, feelings and all.
The morning in that photo, I awoke feeling like it was straight from a Folger’s coffee commercial. Sin ganas de despertar. Pero, mi abuelo started up some of his Nescafe coffee con extra, extra sugar on the stove and put the fajita and pollo and sausage – that I had taken over from the previous night’s barbecue – to fry on the stove con chiles piquin and potatoes, all fried with tomato sauce. Y con crunchy tortillas. Híjole! You can imagine it, right?!
Delicious. What a revoltura. My abuelo knew his hechos. Even abuela forgot about her empache y hay se sento a desayunar su platote de sea lo que sea que invento mi abuelo.
My aunt Elva was taking a siesta on the sofa.
After breakfast, mis abuelos went outside to water their jardin del paraíso – as I tended to call their garden. Flowers and plants of all types. And you should see the fruit they’d planted over the years! Melons, sandias, uvas, duraznos, naranjas y limas, guayabas y tomatoes, hasta platanos, and more! They loved their jardin. And so did I. It wouldn’t have been my abuelos’ place without it. I hope one day to take after them.
Uy! I felt el espiritu de mi bis-abuela Linda pass right past me. Probably my imagination. Probably. Maybe it’s cuz I’m here by myself sipping on coffee, listening to Pedro Infante, writing on the flower patterned mantel abuela brought from San Miguel de Allende, thinking about life and the past.
And sometimes that hurts. Not knowing enough of the past when I want to know it all.
Priscilla Celina Suárez 