Grandma,

On November 9th, I woke up to a text from you at around 6:30 a.m..

I have cried a lot of tears, it said.

I stared at the little blue bubble, for what felt like hours, and cried. I cried for you.

You have been on this earth for 72 wonderful years. You grew up during the Civil Rights Movement, a young girl with two immigrant parents who spoke very little english and barely made enough to support their seven children. You grew up with the odds stacked against you. You grew up with the world against you. But somehow you made it. You made it so our lives would be easier. You carried the weight so we didn't have to.

"I look at you and I don't know how we got so lucky," you once told me. Really, I look at you and don't know how I got so lucky. You are my best friend. My shoulder to cry on, my rock, my inspiration. I look at you and all your struggles, amazed that someone who has been through so much still finds hope in the little things. You see the beauty in others though they have not always been able to find it in you. You love everyone as if they were your own. Honest and strong, you have made me fearless.

I remember when Barack Obama got elected and you cried. "This world is coming around," you said. "The world is going to be better for you."

I cried then and I cry now because you believed we had made it out on the other side. You believed America had progressed past the point of hate, past the point of bigotry, and past the point of seixism. Yet you woke up on November 9th to the realization that maybe it hadn't. Not quite yet.

Donald Trump is now the President of the United States.

Grandma, I am sorry. After all the fights you've fought, all the tears you've cried, all the change you've worked for, there are people who believe in a man who built his campaign off of fear, off of exclusion, and off of racism.

That is not the America you believe in. It's not the one I believe in either.

I replied to you, It's a sad world.

For an entire day, I did not move. I couldn't. I was angry. I was sad. I was confused. I spent most of the day in shock. I suddenly didn't understand the people around me. The world wasn't as bright as I once believed it to be.

I waited patiently for you to respond and I would have understood your pessimism. Instead you surprised me, like you always do.

You said, "Take a deep breath, mija. We will overcome. We always have."

Yes, grandma, we will.