When I was four years old, and seven years old, and ten years old I looked up to a beautiful, dark skin, short haired woman who wore glasses and dry hands from working around the clock. She would attend to her husband, her children, and anyone who walked in the front door. She woke up before sunrise, and would stay up at night making sure everyone else was taken care of before heading to bed.
I looked at this woman with amazed eyes, her golden skin, her vibrant smile, and sparkling eyes; so much beauty, I could only pray to be just like her when I’d grow up. “Abuelita, cuando sea grande, quiero ser igualita que tu”, I’d tell her as I would hold her face close to mine and kiss her.
Little did I know her journey, her history, her struggles, and every scar that had left her so wounded and fragile that made her come on May of 2018 to our home. The woman I had recently been in arguments with and no longer did I want to be like, had been haunted by her ghosts for far too long. When she finally opened up, the abuse, being degraded by her own husband, and with each word and each punch of pain, ripping the scars open, she bled tears of suffering for over half a century of lack of self worth. The beautiful woman I admired and still do had been carrying more weight on her shoulders than she could take, and somehow still managed. She didn’t have a childhood, she never felt love, she didn’t know what it was like to be valued by a man, she didn’t know what it was like to be taken cared of by a partner, she didn’t know what it was like to be reminded how valued and worthy she was, because she was and she is. I held her close and all I could think of is how I could get her to live her last years of her life and make sure she obtained everything she has missed out on.
Today, Friday June 08, 2018 at 2:30pm my grandma was on her way back to Mexicali. She was and is on her way back home to her husband, and her two children who still reside in the area. She goes back stronger and filled with the love she had been lacking. Mi abuelita goes back with a reminder to be strong, to love herself, to take care of herself, to look at her self with value and worth. She goes back to Mexicali, but we will await with open arms for her to come back to us. We will wait for the strong woman I know and have always known to continue growing, continue shinning, continue smiling, continue being the beautiful woman I knew twenty years ago. The strong woman I hope to be one day.
Thank you grandma for the advice, the guidance, the love, the strength you gave me for the last twenty years of my life I now give you. Thank you for the love you’ve given me, that I now have to remind you of. Maybe our places have changed, and where you once carried me, now I carry you, but I do it gladly, because I’d do it any day for a woman who is so worthy, so valuable, so humble, so strong, so talented, so beautiful, smart, kind, and generous as you are. I still hope one day to be just like you are. I still hope to achieve all the dreams and goals I have as I hope to accomplish the things you feel you never had the chance to. I live for you and I live for me, and in our lifetime, I will make sure to support you to finish achieving your dreams too.
To the strong woman I know, I love you and I can’t wait to see you again.
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