Remembering Mi Abuela
I was prompted by a post I saw on Facebook about growing old and being loved in spite of losing your hair and getting wrinkled. It was a quote that said: ""You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand." Margery Williams -The Velveteen Rabbit, 1922. William Nicholson, illustration." This post jolted me to ask, ' Who do I know who had become real?' I couldn't help but to think of my Abuela, known to neighbors as Doña Tinita. My Abuela didn't become real to me until I was thirteen, having been deprived of my only grandparent on my mom's side because of a great deal of mil