My abuela lived on the second floor of our two family home. But not even the thick walls between us could keep the aroma of spices from seeping through the cracks, down the stairs, and through the keyhole.
Abuela tended to her stove and oven all day long. She cleaned edges, adjusted nozzles, added a few pinches of her home grown spices to the chuletas frying in a thin layer of oil. She never used measuring cups. "A true chef knows what her food needs" she would say adding a pinch of cilantro to the boiling rice. She would reach into a bag of cumin, pinch the red dust between her fingers, sprinkle it into the steaming pots. "Perfecto" she would sigh, adjusting the crooked frame of her glasses, and then she would smile at me.
As though an alarm had gone off, all of her children arrived, in vans stuffed with my cousins and their dogs. The doors, rolled open, and out fell hungry children and parents. Everyone piled into the backyard. My aunts settled into lawn chairs to discuss the most recent gossip of our family. My uncles popped open beers and seated themselves at the picnic table for a game of dominoes and who'll get drunk first. My cousins filled up all the empty spaces of the yard. We played baseball in the driveway, collected rocks out of abuela's garden, and set up obstacle courses on the play-scape.
Although there were 35 kids to play with, I always enjoyed sitting with the mothers and tending to the babies. I liked stroking their soft apple red cheeks and wiping the dried drool caked in the corners of their lips. I jumped at the chance to spoon my abuela's rice into their gummy mouths. I adored cradling them in my arms, humming melodies into their ears.
I loved watching abuela cook, working over the stove like a musician working on a symphony to be played for the Queen herself, or a doctor fussing over what would be the cure to cancer itself.
Abuela was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when I was in the eight grade. The doctors said there was nothing they could do for her, that those hot summer days were her last. My parents moved her into our house; my room. She lay in a bed made of metal, hoses running from her nose, wires hanging over the edges, and machines that sounded like leaf blowers pumping air into her lungs. She looked out of place in my bubblegum pink bedroom, surround by teddy bears and dolls I had once played doctor with, whose illnesses never went past the simple cure of a kiss. I tried kissing my grandmother's withered cheeks, wishing every time that maybe her eyes would flicker open, she would adjust her glasses, and that she would make my favorite french fries.
My mother would spoon soup between her cracked lips, clapping and cheering every time she swallowed. I always played along, even though I knew that the liquid had only run down her dry throat, and fallen into her empty stomach. When my abuela began eating apple sauce everyone celebrated. It was like watching a baby get fed. It was frightening to think that only a few months before, my abuela had been the one feeding a baby in her arms, wiping the drool from a toothy grin, smiling down at the little bundle. I remembered abuela being the caretaker, as my mother wiped the spit on her chin.
For a while, I believed that my grandmother was going to get better. She had begun to walk, and speak. But one day, she asked my mother to bring her to the hospital. The doctors told us she wasn't going to last through the night.
Vans filled with family members parked in the hospital garage. The children filed by abuela's bedside to kiss her cheek, ask for her blessings, and tell her they loved her. All 35 of us followed this pattern before going into the family room of the hospital. No one seemed worried. "Abuela can't die. If she does, who will cook the ham on Christmas?" I tried to believe that what they were saying was true. That she would be home in no time, wearing her bent glasses, and skirts decorated in flowers. But deep down, I knew that my grandma was already gone.
The little kids seemed more concerned than the big kids that our abuela was in the hospital. "What's gonna happen to her?" they asked. They always thought I had the answers. I remembered what my grandma had told me to tell them when it came time for her to go. She had seated me on the edge of her bed and held my tiny hands in her wrinkled ones, "One day, you're going to have to take care of los nenes for me. I'm getting old. Soon God is going to call me home. And when that happens, you have to tell them that Papa Dios, father God, is calling me back to the kitchen in heaven."
I told the children not to be sad. I told them that she was in heaven cooking a big pot of rice for God. I knew that los nines were now my job. I had to wipe the drool from their faces and feed them chicken. I had to rock them gently and teach them about cooking. It was time for me to truly put down the Barbie dolls and pick up the baby bottles.
I remember the words of my grandmother, “Yo vivo para los ninos” I live for the children. My grandmother did live for the children. And I wish to continue that.
I do not care if I have a big home, or the newest car. Only that I make a difference in a child’s life, for that in my opinion is the greatest gift there is. I ache for the day when I have my own classroom with children whose dreams are limitless. Where I can nourish those dreams and help them reach their potential. Where I can make a difference in their lives; and watch them grow into the people who will one day take our place.
I wish to learn more than what my abuela has already taught me; take on a classroom of children, and treat them like my grandmother treated her food; carefully and with love.
