My paternal grandfather passed
away when I was two and a half, but if I close my eyes and concentrate, I can
hear his voice. He spoke in polite Spanish with everyone, the kind of Spanish
one uses to show respect. He used it
with me also.
He was stern and his grown
children hesitated before approaching him, but I was too young to be afraid and
would crawl onto his lap. I would ask
him questions and he would smile and answer me.
He had property out in the
country where he raised livestock but lived in town and kept one or two horses,
maybe one cow, in the corral next to his house. We lived nearby and would go
visit him every weekend, and I would walk alongside him whenever he went out in
the yard to check on the livestock.
I remember I had on a pair of red
cowboy boots which he thought were pretty amazing. He would place a booted foot on the lower
rung of the corral and I did too, except I had to hike my leg a little higher
than his. I remember I looked up when I
heard him laugh, but he just looked away, a smile on his face, and pretended he
was studying the horse.
One visit he didn’t come out to
greet us. I checked through the whole
house and couldn’t find him. Dad had to be the one to tell me that my
grandfather had passed away and we were there for the funeral.
I didn’t cry, but when the
grownups all went into the living room to greet visitors, I went back into his
bedroom. I climbed onto his high bed and
lay down on his pillow. When my aunt found me, she shooed me outside.
The corral was empty, but I hiked
my sandaled foot onto the bottom rung wishing he were there to laugh at me.
Family did not believe that I
remembered something that happened when I was so young, but I can describe the
house, the corral, my grandfather. He is more than a memory; he lives inside me.
Maybe this is what people mean when they say that our loved ones live on inside
us. I know that would make him smile.
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