evermansice

I've been inactive for a stupidly long time. My apologies.

So, Mexico. I haven't been there since I was roughly two years old, and it's probably from this visit that the earliest memories in my life come from. Returning, then, was nowhere near as strange or surreal as I had anticipated it to be. I had heard the warnings given to me by my brother and sister, both of whom visit Mexico much more regularly than I, about the state of the area, my grandmother's (Abuelita) house, and the general condition of everything, really. In a sense, I was almost disappointed to see things in so un-desperate a state when I arrived.

I visited to help Abuelita around the house with a handful of longstanding issues neither she nor the recent visitors to her house were able to deal with and to celebrate her ninetieth birthday with her. In truth, though, those reasons were bordering on ostentation. I did and was happy to do both of those things, but the reason that called me there most powerfully was I had begun to feel I never really knew my grandmother. Whenever I saw Abuelita anytime after my two-year-old trip, it was when she came to Chicago. I can't remember a time, though, when she wouldn't talk lovingly about her house back in Mexico and say she couldn't wait to get back to it; if we wanted more time with her, we would just have to go visit her there.

A few weeks before my trip, my sister called me. She had just come from Abuelita's house. Despite the fact that she had visited Mexico a few times in the intervening period, she, too, had not visited our grandmother at her house since our childhood visit. The conversation was about many things, in the background were those things she said Abuelita needed help with and how she wished she could have stayed for Abuelita's birthday celebration. Her section of the town she lived in wanted to throw a party for her. She had become the neighborhood's grandmother over the years, but she would not have it. One of her sons had died not long ago. She was still in mourning. Instead, the local church would dedicate a mass in her honor. The most important part of that conversation to my mind, however, was my sister's account of Abuelita's behavior. What she described did not sound like the grandmother I knew. It sounded like someone much more vivacious, someone much more alive. Abuelita in her element, in her home, it would seem, was much more than the person I thought I had come to know. Her ninetieth birthday was coming, and work was slow. I booked a flight the next day. I wanted to get to know my grandmother, really know her, before she died. I'm sure she still has a good number of years left in her, but the timing was opportune, and that was not a chance I wanted to take.

The end result was a trip spent uncovering a good deal of exaggerations. Abuelita's house was nowhere near as small or dilapidated as my sister had led me to believe. My sister was fond of the place, it would turn out, so she left me with a series of disclaimers so I would not be taken aback by it when I arrived. I grew fond of it as well. Her garden was similarly not as large as was described to me in the tales I had been told, but it was still larger than I had expected. She has plants growing she does not know what to do with. Some of these plants happen to be trees. None of them are weeds. In the middle of this is my grandmother. Abuelita has a brand of tortillas she likes. They make them a mile away. They sell them in stores near her, but some mornings she wants them straight from the source and will walk there to see them made, chatting with friends as she passes their houses along the way. Her memory, at ninety, is not what it used to be. She will forget, sometimes, where she put one thing or another and have to spend some time looking for it. Sometimes, though, something you say will remind her of a song lyric or poem from decades ago, and she will began to recite or sing it, word for word, from memory. Also, as much as her children insist, she will not leave her home. She's happy with her life there, and if she dies, she says, she dies, much to their horror. She's had ninety good years. If God comes for her tomorrow, why should she ask for more? Everyone dies. If they're so concerned about her welfare, they should visit her more often. The doctors have declared her sound of mind and she stands by their judgment.

In short, she is an awesome old lady. I was aware of this before, but I am more aware of it now. There's something about having conversations like this:
"So how old am I now, eighty-six? Eighty-eight?"
"Ninety."
"I did just celebrate my ninetieth birthday, didn't I? Mother of God, I'm old."
That sets her apart in my mind.

On a side note, while I am normally annoyed when writing is peppered with seemingly gratuitous, easily translatable foreign words, I do it here for a number of reasons. Abuelita for those of you who don't know, is Spanish for "Grandmother." As happens with some relatives, that has become how I refer to her and have referred to her since I was a child. I put it in italics, though, so non-Spanish-speakers don't think that's actually her given name. The thought of my calling her by her given name, you see, feels disrespectful. Abuelita is my name for her, even if it is not the one on her birth certificate. As a name, and not a title, it would inappropriate to translate it. I do use "grandmother," on occasion, but I use it in reference to the relationship much like "my friend" or "my cousin" is still used in writing where they are also referred to by name.