Gran gran comes from a fantastic and very interesting family. Her story is told to me time and time again ever time we seat at the small round table in my kitchen for coffee.
"You know what?" she starts, "I have worked hard all my life, since I was 8 years old I've been working" and I tell her how great that was because it made her the person she is today.
Still with some bitter emotion in her voice she recounts how she was made to work hard while her older sister was allowed to lazy about in the house and was given all the attention she was denied. It saddens me to hear her story, I can feel her sadness because as a young girl she was aware of the preferences and the unfair treatment from her parents.
She tells me of how she had to wake up at the crack of dawn to milk cows, I ask her how many cows were there, she says 5 one day about 10 on a different day. But regardless of the number of cows, the story of her milking cows at the crack of down when she was only about 8 years old is consistent.
Gran gran had 3 brothers (2 diseased) and two sisters, She is the third child, she doesn't mention her youngest sister who is also the youngest of all the siblings, she seems to only remember her oldest sister who is the oldest of all the siblings, and her two dead brothers. She loved Jilberto, he protected her, he witness the unfair treatments toward gran gran and he seems to have stood up for her. Her younger brother is a tragic story. She tells that story with such sadness and regret you can feel the same as you listen to it time and time again and it always evokes the same emotion..
Gran gran's younger brother was only 12 years old when he died tragically. The family lived in a ranch in which handling of fire arms was common place at any age. Gran gran herself was an avid shooter. One day they let a friend borrow a rifle and when he returned it, her little brother grabbed it and sat down, he slammed the butt of the riffle on the ground as he sat and the riffle went off hitting him right under the chin and exiting at the top of the head. He died instantly. She describes her little brother as a beautiful creature inside and out. "He had blue eyes" she says, which is probably why she takes to my oldest son as if he was her own, she describes her little brother and you see my son in the picture. She cries sometimes when she tells the story, ending in curses to the friend who so irresponsibly left a round in the chamber. "Who does that" she she cries, what a fucking bastard, damned be that bastard" she cries. I tell her she must forget because she now must remember she's a christian, "You're right" she says wiping away the tears.
:(
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