sticks & stones
Posted: 11 Apr 2020, 04:08
APRIL 10TH, 2020
H O M E
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It's hard to say either way, if I'd be singing without my grandmother. Abuela, who cooked and cleaned, and blasted Selena in the living room with a shaky sound system that worked when it wanted to. But if you knew all the words, who really needed the music clear? You heard it in your heart, and I think of that every time I sing. I think of her, and the way she used to encourage me and it still doesn't matter that she's been gone for years now, because just like she used to say the music is in my blood and deep in my heart just like my love for her always is.
I can't properly put words to the way she made me feel. Even if it's important to remember, because nothing quite gives it justice. Everything about her made me feel comforted, loved, and taken care of. My earliest memory of her is the way she would scrub me from head to toe in the bathroom, making sure to wash my scalp, and my thick long hair. She took me everywhere, even if she didn't have a car, hand-and-hand as we walked along the sidewalk towards the gas station that had a neighborhood park behind it. One apple juice for me, a water for her, and there's where we'd have our picnics until it was time to go home. To shower, to wear clean clothes for dinner that was always at the dining room table, because the house was so small it didn't have much room to eat in the livingroom that was really just a wide long hallway with two couches facing each other, and a TV stand in the corner that was hardly ever on. If there was one thing to say about her food, it would be 'perfection' and that still wouldn't live up to how she cooked. I know, everyone says that their grandparents cooked great, but it wasn't that she just cooked wonderfully it was that she cooked for all of us. It was the fact that she still always cooked, no matter that her feet were bad, or that she still worked to have a roof over our heads. It was that she embodied everything I ever knew about love.
"Food is a form of love, hija. Eat." And when I close my eyes to pray to a God[because you taught me to], that I'm not convinced exists, because he/she/they took you, abuela, I still eat three times a day because you loved me and no matter where I am, or what I do, I know that to always be true.
I miss you.
H O M E
------
It's hard to say either way, if I'd be singing without my grandmother. Abuela, who cooked and cleaned, and blasted Selena in the living room with a shaky sound system that worked when it wanted to. But if you knew all the words, who really needed the music clear? You heard it in your heart, and I think of that every time I sing. I think of her, and the way she used to encourage me and it still doesn't matter that she's been gone for years now, because just like she used to say the music is in my blood and deep in my heart just like my love for her always is.
I can't properly put words to the way she made me feel. Even if it's important to remember, because nothing quite gives it justice. Everything about her made me feel comforted, loved, and taken care of. My earliest memory of her is the way she would scrub me from head to toe in the bathroom, making sure to wash my scalp, and my thick long hair. She took me everywhere, even if she didn't have a car, hand-and-hand as we walked along the sidewalk towards the gas station that had a neighborhood park behind it. One apple juice for me, a water for her, and there's where we'd have our picnics until it was time to go home. To shower, to wear clean clothes for dinner that was always at the dining room table, because the house was so small it didn't have much room to eat in the livingroom that was really just a wide long hallway with two couches facing each other, and a TV stand in the corner that was hardly ever on. If there was one thing to say about her food, it would be 'perfection' and that still wouldn't live up to how she cooked. I know, everyone says that their grandparents cooked great, but it wasn't that she just cooked wonderfully it was that she cooked for all of us. It was the fact that she still always cooked, no matter that her feet were bad, or that she still worked to have a roof over our heads. It was that she embodied everything I ever knew about love.
"Food is a form of love, hija. Eat." And when I close my eyes to pray to a God[because you taught me to], that I'm not convinced exists, because he/she/they took you, abuela, I still eat three times a day because you loved me and no matter where I am, or what I do, I know that to always be true.
I miss you.