Someone posted in their blog about their grandfather dying this past week, and it made me sad. I always think wistfully about my abuelo Zoilo. He died when I was young, but I remember a few things about him.
I went to Colombia when I was about seven, and I remember sitting beside him in my pjs outside while he peeled coconuts with a machete. I remember how he would make me sing Yankee Doodle, and he'd sing along with me. He liked to speak to me in English, though his accent was strong and his vocabulary rough. I think it made him proud that I was an American, and that I was fluent in English.
He fled to the United States from Spain during the Franco Dictatorship, along with his brother and a friend. He settled in California, but his brother and friend decided to start a business that involved allot of travel to Colombia. The two grew sick there, and my grandfather followed them to bring them back, but he was too late. He grew sick instead, and suffered from a brief stint of amnesia. My grandmother, who was training to become a nun at the time, nursed him back to health. Needless to say, he never returned to America, though he always wanted to, but he sent all four of his children.
My mom tells me he was very stern, but also very sensitive, and easily touched. She says he wrote poetry, and that there are loose sheets of it about. A few years ago, I remembered this, and I thought it would be so nice if I could gather it all and get it bound in a book for my mom as a Christmas or birthday present. But, the more I think of it, the more I want it for myself. I just wish someone knew where it all was.
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