She said that the first bed I got into when I got home from the maternity ward was hers. That could be why, even today, when I feel sad or insecure, that's where I want to run.
My maternal grandmother was the most amazing and generous person I had the opportunity to meet. She was known to everyone in the neighborhood where we lived for being a person who always kept the doors open, from her home and her heart.
I spent my entire childhood in the hem of her skirt, as well as my adolescence and early adulthood, until I left home and went to live alone.
During all the years that I was lucky enough to see life through her eyes, I learned that actions were more powerful than words, and that is still the most effective way to express yourself: taking action.
Shopping at the fair was used to find abused women looking for support, at a time when the word “empowerment” was not even in the dictionary. She suggested the right herbs to spice up food and life. She prescribed patience and courage, in such a simple and optimistic way that she didn't even seem to have her own pains.
Tired of being mistreated in her marriage, she faced fear and society and separated from my grandfather in the early 70's, bought a plot of land and built her own house where she housed almost the entire family each season, welcomed everyone who needed it. medicine, advice or a hug, no matter what time of day or night.
He didn't know how to read or write, but his wisdom transcended, it was something beyond, far beyond this world.
Living with my grandmother made me a strong and courageous woman. I never needed to tell her what I was feeling, because her gaze captured my soul and instead of long speeches, she just stroked my hair, with my head resting on her lap and said: “It will pass!”.
I believed and encouraged myself for the confrontations that life put before me.
When I got pregnant, single, I was afraid of letting her down in some way. I was afraid of being reprimanded for breaking that tradition where a woman should marry first and have children later.
When I told her that I would have a child, I gave the news followed by a question.
– Will you not love me anymore?
And she smiling replied:
- I will love you even more.
She knew a lot about love and I was just learning.
I read recently that children who had grandparents around during their development grew up happier.
In particular, I think that nothing compares to living with grandparents, because it is a light relationship, which makes us feel fully loved, safe and confident even with the natural frustrations of life.
I have just become a grandmother and I wonder if I will be able to be for my granddaughter what my grandmother was for me.
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She's been gone for five years and in a condolence message a friend wrote that when grandparents die, a piece of our childhood dies too.
I say more than that, because the things we learn from our grandparents are more than the story itself can tell.
They are guardian angels of family affairs, the confidants of hours of resentment, the last resort in times of oppression, the allies in crises of rebellion, the best lap in the world. They are more than the best childhood characters.
They are sources of peace in adult life and, without a doubt, of eternal longing.
