Grandma

Daily creations

Just by entering her home you can smell that delicious scent of a freshly made apple pie. Every day when I walk from the entrance to the kitchen, is knowing that you will enjoy the meal. If someone do not notice that she spends a quarter of the day inside the kitchen, then you don’t know anything about her. The day I asked her what was her passion and better possession, she replied without hesitation, "my kitchen". She taught us how to bake some cakes, but if someone asks me for a recipe today, I would not even remember the first two steps. But when she teaches you how to cook, step by step, with a proper tranquility that even you do it with so much pleasure. And when you're done, she is the happiest. It is said that every day you learn something new, I think she learns something new about cooking every day. It comes to my mind that rich scent when I enter her home every Christmas. And now I understand why my grandfather cares her so much, just by seeing her cooking, you stay amazed.  Whenever she´s baking a cake I just sit there over the table and watch her doing every movement she does with such admiration.  The lovely smell of that apple pie, the movement of her hands molding the shape, cutting delicately every slice and putting that piece of art into the oven, after that, the magic of watching her disappears until she takes that pie to the table and call us to try what she makes with love to us in her favorite space of the house. What is surprising of this woman is that she do not only attends her family, that colorful birds that sing all the day in their cages, are part of her daily creations.  Every morning, when the sun starts to put up in the sky, she opens the door in the cage and put a piece of her freshly cut fruit. That day in April is always in my head, me entering that room where she combines flavors, grandma was singing -with not much tune- while she was creating a new daily saucer. Grandma Blanca is such a skilled woman, that kitchen is and will always be her passion and, with that happiness and peace that characterizes, she is always focused in that daily creation. 

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Mauricia

An amazing woman

 

When I think about life and how fast the years go away, like liquid slipping through ones’ hands, it often comes to my mind the lessons I learned from my grandmother. There are not enough words to describe this amazing woman. My grandfather died when my father was only 3 years old, leaving my grandmother alone and taking care of six restless children. My grandma worked every day with a smile on her face, and is thanks to her dedication and noble soul that my father became who he is today, and therefore I became who I am today.  When I was 15 years old I moved out and started living in an apartment, during this time I often visited my grandmother and spend many hours talking with her about her own memories and life itself. She convinced me about living life in peace, and to be kind to one another, and especially to be clear about whom you are, because that is “one of the most important thing to learn in life”. My grandmother taught me to be strong and to defend my convictions. I still find peace from the moment I enter her home and she gives me that warm motherly love, just as she gives me way more food than I could possibly eat. I remember from my childhood seeing her do many things, I learned patience when I was her sewing a small sweater for one of her many grandsons, or working on those 5,000 piece puzzles. I learned about many amazing books when I was a small curious child searching for treasures in her always neat room; and indeed how many treasures she had in there, not all the gold in the world will be worth more to me than her paper and plastic treasures, the ones that gave me many hours of fun. I always find advice in her wise words; she has become a teacher and a figure of respect in my life. Now, when I talk to her I get to know another part of life, a part I didn’t knew before, through her stories I get to meet new people, and get to know people that are no longer here with us. Through her ability to tell stories and anecdotes she opened a door inside me, because she has taught me about the lives of many people and therefore many different lessons. Thanks to her I appreciate each day, and value each year that comes by, because every hour that passes is never coming back. And it is true, that life goes away fast, like liquid slipping through your hands, but as my grandma taught me, what a beautiful and precious liquid it truly is. 

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My Grandma's Silver Necklace

A silver necklace, with a little key attached to it. That was the only thing that my grandma left for me when she died. At first I was a little mad because I thought she was going left something with great value like a car, a ring, a house or stuff like that. My cousins were the luckiest, because all the best gifts were given to them.  At some point I was really jealous of them. I never thought that my silver necklace has a deep meaning and a great value that only my grandma knew I was going to recognize at some point of my life. The necklace has a plaque and a key attached to it, with a strange symbol in them. Someday, when I have nothing to do, I investigate the symbol in the internet. It really has a great meaning. The plaque has the Saint Benito’s cross, who was one of the first exorcists in the world. At the other side, it has a little prayer that talks about defending me of all that bad wishes and thoughts. The key was a symbol of opening all the best opportunities in life, and getting out the worst. Now I know why she gave that silver necklace to me. When I was a little kid, I tell her my dreams. They were big dreams about going to work in Disney. Make movies that could send the world a message. Get in every people’s hearts, and change them. If you change mankind, you change the world and its future. She had big expectations in my future. That necklace was like an amulet, but not for luck, but for success. The luck is for the people that make no effort in achieving their dreams, and want a holy help. That was a gift with the only purpose of protecting and helping me in this long and hard road. Now, I use my grandma’s silver necklace everywhere I go. Every time the problems are ahead me, I look at it to gain confidence. That was the best gift she could gave me. It has more value for me than any car, ring, or any expensive material in the world. So, if someone that loves you gave youNecklace an insignificant gift, rate it. Sometimes all the meaningful things in life, are the most simple ones.


 

 

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Ms. Victoria McKie

My eyes begin to water at the edges of this thought, you taught me many things I mean I crawled, I stood, I walked,
and though you have been gone so long your memory's still with me, I'm talking bout you Grandma, Ms. Victoria McKie.

You left when I was 9 which shows alot of years have passed, the thought as bright as day the time when I was near you last,
and if I knew that time would be the final of my life, I would've held you tighter like the stars embrace the night.

I hope you're proud of me, I try my best and Heaven knows, I live a life which shows I'll be in Heaven when I go,
I realize that I haven't done it perfect to the T, I know that you'd still love me, that is 1 true certainty.

The day of August 29th in 1926, is when your life began without you, I would not exist,
and this is my attempt to reminisce a life well spent, I'd give my final cent to feel your lips give me a kiss.

We used to sit and read, a lifelong love I'd learn and keep, and stroke creative fires that now wildly burn in me,
can't help but get emotional, the tears, it burns to see, your presence, so influencing the man I learned to be.

I shared you with all others but I'm selfish to a fault, I knew I was your favorite deep within my heart of hearts,
you showed me with your love and patience each and every day, it's safe to say you proved yourself in each and every way.

In sitting here and writing this my teardrops start to fall, the weight of these emotions, there's no way to stop them all,
it's hard to keep composure when you feel that love was stole, away so very early and in turn it steals your soul.

I hope that where you are you're very happy; Pearly Gates, I know God had good reasoning for taking you away,
and on the day we meet again you'll surely know it's me, I love and miss you Grandma, Ms. Victoria McKie.

©2011

Author's Notes/Comments: 

This is something that I wrote for my grandmother on her birthday, pretty self explanatory.

My grandma's frog collection

My Grandma’s Frog Collection

My grandma have this huge frogs collection, she has them before I was born and in her collection you can find all this types of frogs, some are made of plastic, porcelain, glass, even she used to have one that was mummified. Since I have memory, I remembered my grandma telling me and my cousins that we can´t ever played with her collection but we didn´t follow this rule, we played with them every time we can, even if we knew that she was going a get really mad if we broke one, so we were really careful, but sometimes we weren’t enough, because we broke a lot of frogs. Because we were kids, we didn’t know what to do with the broken frogs, so we hide them under the couch thinking that my grandma will never notice, but when the cleaning lady found out, she always told to my grandma each time she found one. The punished was that if we broke one frog, we need to give her another, so every time I and my family went to a holiday trip, we always bring a souvenir frog for her replacing the one we broke. Now when I go to my grandma’s house I still see the old frogs which I used to played, it is strange because I can remember almost all the frogs, for example, she still have a little frog wearing a hat who is sitting in a canoe and its fishing, I always played with that frog, it was my favorite. Now me and my cousins grew up, we stop playing with the frog collection, but the new generations are the ones who are playing with those frogs. Now I have to little cousins and one nephew and every time they can, they played with them, actually it is really funny, cause the last time I went to my grandma’s she told me that they are doing exactly the same that I used to do with my cousins, they hide the frogs under the couch. Now when I see a frog it remembers me my grandma and when I have a chance I still buy souvenir frogs to her, the last trip I made was to Guanajuato, I didn´t know that Guanajuato means City of Frogs, I bought a little frog that is wearing a helmet like a miner, I can’t wait to see her and give it to her

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My grandma's house

My grandma’s house
My grandma’s house is really big and it is located in the down town of Oaxaca. I remember it very good because when I was a little girl I used to spend a lot of time there, and the greatest thing of being there was that all my cousins were there too. My grandma had ten children, so I have a lot of cousins, some of them are very close to me, some others not that much. But when we were there we had a lot of fun, our favorite game was hide and seek, but we used to play it varying and inventing new rules. One of the special thing of my grandma´s house is that in the back yard she had some animals, she used to have a lot of hens, so in the house were always eggs to eat, she also used to have rabbits, white rabbits with enormous red eyes, my cousins and I liked to feed them, with lettuce and oat, but sometimes the rabbits bit us and we screamed a lot. Once she even had a goat, a goat named Cornelia. When I was a little girl I used to think there was a farm in the middle of the city. In my grandma´s house always have been birds, from a little canary to his favorite, a big green parrot with color feathers. It was her favorite because the parrot could sing, whistle and speak very well; he always was singing a song my grandma used to sing to me. My grandma used to call him “mi niño”. I didn’t like him very much because once he tried to bite me. When the parrot tried to escape because someone has left the cage’s door open, the entire family moved on to catch him. When the parrot died my grandma was very sad and almost cry. Other thing I can remember from that big beautiful house is the smell of food, my grandma is a great cook, she is like a magician because everything she cooks, no matter what, taste very well, so the house is always smelling delicious. Her specialty is the “mole negro”, and I have tasted a lot of different varieties in many places, but none of those can compare to the flavor of my grandma’s one, it has a smoked flavor very unique. I hope one day she could teach me how to prepare it, and I wish when I grow up to have a house where my grandchildren have a lot of fun and good memories like I did. That house has a great value, not only in the monetary way, but also in all the memories from all the family.

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