"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.

_{My paternal grandmother: Eugenia}

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.

The images are from my personal gallery and the text was translated with Deepl

Thank you for reading and commenting. Until a future reading, friends