I am a lucky girl, not only because I have the fortune of saying that I met all my grandparents, both maternal and paternal, but also because I was raised and educated by one of them, my paternal grandmother, and I can say, without fear of being wrong, that much of who I am today, I owe to her. I could talk about each of my grandparents, whom I visited from time to time, but it would be unfair to my paternal grandmother, Eugenia, because I lived with her for 15 years of my life. Maíta, can I talk about you?

My grandmother Eugenia was my father’s mother, an indigenous woman who lived in the countryside and whom my father brought home because he promised her that when he got his own house, she would live with him. When she joined my family, I had not yet been born, so I suppose that from the moment I opened my eyes, my grandmother was there: watching me, loving me. Since my mom and dad worked, my grandmother was the one who looked after us, her grandchildren.

From my grandmother I remember many things, such as that she always told me stories and sang in her own language, as if her chest hurt; that she loved proverbs and had a saying for everything (Tortoise calling armadillo thick-shelled and a tiger's son is born painted); that she made me eat because, according to her, I would stay small, not knowing that I would always remain 1.58 meters tall; that she watched me to prevent me from causing mischief or getting into trouble. But I can also say that she defended me in front of my parents and others, that she was my accomplice in some craziness, like the time I decided to make clothes for all my dolls and she helped me sew everything. Maíta was strict, serious, strong; but she also gave us all the love she had, even if it meant having nothing left for herself.

That love she felt for us was mutual: the love I had for her was what made me teach her to read and write, because she was illiterate. It led me to take on the task, after taking a nap, of reading aloud to her all the newspapers of the day or giving her foot massages because her feet were cramping or very tired.

I was so attached to my grandmother that once, when I was 6 years old, she went on a trip to the countryside and I got sick. When she called, they told her that I had fallen ill, and she had to return, and my fever went away. Maybe that’s why I was her inseparable companion whenever she visited the doctor or went anywhere else, and it was enough for my grandmother to give me any herbal concoction to cure any ailment.

"My grandmother works magic," I used to tell my classmates always, as if my grandmother were the most wonderful being in the world.

For example, at home there was a guava tree that she had planted and it was the perfect place whenever I wanted to escape from the world. My grandmother had forbidden me to climb it, fearing I would fall, but I always did it without her noticing. Once, jumping from one side to the other, I fell and my grandmother ran to help me. I was crying as if I had broken something, and she just told me her magical words:

Heal, heal, little frog's tail, if you don’t heal today, you’ll heal tomorrow - she repeated over and over until the pain passed and I stopped crying.

That guava tree, where I climbed every afternoon, was used to give us shade while she told us stories, or when she sat to sew, embroider, sing, or take a nap, while I from above, threw dry leaves or little sticks to let her know I was there, near her:

Climb down from there, little monkey - my grandmother would repeat, playing along, but without doing anything to make me get down.

That tree was knocked down when my grandmother died, and I remember crying, thinking that the tree was herself: the place where I felt safe, the place we shared. But above all, the one that protected us, nourished us, and like any tree, allowed us to have fun in its branches.

I can only conclude by saying that I am a lucky woman to have had an angel as a grandmother, whom I still remember and love very much, and that, although I am grateful for everything she gave me, I would have liked to have her alive longer because it’s not sentimentality, but my world has been very sad without her.