Amalita
If something I remember from my childhood, they are not toys, treats, or birthdays,
But a strong woman, although skinny, with deep blue eyes
He came to my house every day, and we always had an employee,
I did not miss a single day in a self imposed obligation
Quick, hurried, always loaded with something I do not know what
She was installed in her domains, the kitchen, and with her alchemy
She prepared what her recipes would be, and if something was missing she would replace it
That’s how she was my grandmother, my mother, my dear Amalia.
She was an excellent seamstress of the ones from before, of those who designed.
They made their molds, and the cloth they calculated exactly
With its Singer pedal with slide that never changed with the years
She did not need a mannequin to make her dresses, only the client
And when they insisted on showing her the newly released magazine “Burda”
She did not need to trace her molds to get a model of it.
It was a grandmother, my mother and mother of my brothers
He did not talk to us if there were fights, he just splashed us
And I am still surprised by the weight of that small hand of the frail body
I underestimated, hardened to palote knead years.
Cutting noodle, pumpkin ravioli
The “pastalinda” challenged her, but it did not equaled her dough
As a mature woman, she lived alone in her apartment, which she fought so hard for
Enjoying an independence denied in his early years and not so much
Her children went into voluntary exile and I ended up with her
Enjoying his best last 28 years
The weather had macerated a fine mood, and an exquisite cynicism
That allowed her to laugh at the paradoxes of life.
Daughter of a family of Italian immigrants,
Sister woman among nine majority males
Bums that do not work and you have to attend them recited then
Raised in the countryside, abandoned to her fate,
Of little voluptuousness for canons of her time
She had managed to get married and escape from that fate
She was the mother of a two, which made professionals,
She who only had fifth grade, a whole conquest.
Until her husband left her widowed with only 50 years.
And the worst thing was not that He left her a widow, but left her without a home of her own.
Amalita in the middle of her life did not start crying, she was an oak
She put on her apron, and did what she knew how to do, sew.
And it was thanks to that that she achieve not only his own house but his retirement.
Without missing a single day to my house, that of his daughter, that, be said
“That woman had not stopped having children”, since we were five
And she left infallibly the dinner prepared for 7 people.
For those laps of life when I got to be a mother was by my side
And we closed the circle of life in a different way, we were
Great grandmother, great-granddaughter, mother, but in reality, she was my children grandmother’s .
Dissolved already the family of his daughter the routine was reversed and it was to my house where she came.
Her rhythm was no longer the same, more tiresome, not so hurry
But hers talks, what I would give for laughing again with hers nonsense!
At ninety-six, she was convinced that God
had forgotten that she was still on earth
In such a way that we strive in prayers to remind him
Needless to say that her lucidity was intact, I think she beat me
And if something happens over the years I think it’s an enviable pragmatic logic
That allowed her to abuse alcohol without problem
Since yes even “now I have not died”
Tintillo with a few spoonfuls of sugar, your favorite.
When it was decided that she had to go to a geriatric
She was in charge of entertaining those who were worse than her
They put her in a room alone, I think because of how much she talked
Her great-granddaughter visited and walked during the week
On weekends she was at my house
Alcohol was smuggled in various ways
And her children each visited her once a year
She made me promise not to intern her in a hospital .
And he would not allow anyone to do it.
One Thursday I took her out of one’s guard,
She weighed so little that the elk in my arms
On Friday he died in a sedation in the middle of a transfusion.
She was ninety-eight years old when God remembered her.
I miss her day by day.