Every couple of years when I was growing up, my family would embark on a European vacation. My dad is Italian, and my mom is Spanish, so we'd fly to their respective countries to see family and do some sightseeing.
When we went to Spain, my maternal grandmother would join us. When World War II started in 1939, she left the country with her father and brother, migrating to Argentina for a safer future. Her older sister stayed behind with their mom and never left their small town in Galicia.
I remember those summers in Galicia as a kid. The taste of the sweet yogurt she would buy me. How we laughed at the frigid ocean splashing us while we attempted to get into the water for 10 seconds before losing sensation in our extremities. Eating percebes until my belly hurt. The family stories. The smell of the local perfume we'd bring home that permeated our house.
She was very involved in my life
My grandmother basically raised me, not because my parents weren't around; they were always present. But three months after my birth, my grandfather died, and I became my grandma's sole purpose.
She would babysit anytime my parents needed it. When I was a toddler, they had to go on a work trip to France. When they came back after a month, I was walking and talking, and all I wanted was to spend more time with her.
My parents and I moved a lot while I was growing up, and I grew up in Colombia, Brazil, and the United States. My grandmother would always come to help us settle in and live with us for four to six months at a time. She would take me to school while my mom unpacked boxes, and make me food that felt like home so I wouldn't get homesick, despite me never knowing where "home" really was.
When I went to college in Buenos Aires, I lived with her. My parents thought it'd be a win-win. She'd take care of me, and I'd take care of her. I loved every minute of it. I always had someone to talk to when I came home, and I was there when she once mixed her medicines as her memory faded and called an ambulance for her before it was too late.
She was one of the first people my husband and I told that I was pregnant with a boy. When I told her we were naming him after my grandfather, her dad, and her brother (yes, they all had the same name), she laughed and said, "Poor boy, what an ugly name you're giving him." Honesty was her thing.
She died 4 years ago
My grandmother died in peace when she was 97 years old. She said she was tired of living since everyone her age had already died. I knew it was time, and I still miss her every day of my life. I got her name tattooed on my wrist when we still lived together; I told her I wanted to carry her wherever I went so we could keep adventuring together.
This summer, with my own mother's memory rapidly fading because of Alzheimer's, we decided to go back to my grandmother's town before it was too late for my mom to remember her childhood. I didn't expect to be flooded with so many emotions.
We took my kids to see the house where she grew up, and seeing them run around the backyard while eating freshly picked cherry tomatoes from the vines made me burst into tears.
I miss her so much. And I'm in awe of seeing my children visit Galicia with their grandmother — my mom — and glimpsing in their eyes how they're making memories of their own in the same corner of the world where I have so many.
