Abuela

A lady of iron bones and teeth. Her hair is liquid silver and the day she cut it was the day she conceded.

The silver held value, held her wisdom and her youth all at the same time. I still like to watch her shuffle around the kitchen. And I wonder what went through her mind the day she cut it like a boy. I wonder if my mother’s choice, years later, of cutting it the same length was an effort to look like her. Although she already looked like her. 

When she sits in the car she tells me to tie myself to the seat and I remember she never learned to drive. She sits in her rocking chair in the afternoons and tells her daughter she shouldn’t have let me go. 

“You should’ve kept her close,” she croaks.

I have to admit that when I was younger I thought she was telling her to keep me on a shorter leash. Older now, I see the way she looks at me. A little fear, a little envy. A lot of fondness. When I look at her, I see what made what made me.

And I understand. I understand all of us.