Mi abuelita

My abuelita, the mujer de armas tomar around whose life many of our lives revolved, to one degree or another, died in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday. A la hora de las brujas, as we say, around 2:30 a.m. or so, she died in her sleep, with the most peaceful of expressions on her face.

She had been largely unconscious on her death bed for some time, and had stopped being coherent or lucid, and seemed only to recognize the dead and to have mumbled conversations with those who'd long ago passed: her beloved sister, parents, cousin.

My abuela was a force of nature. The strength and solidity of her personality is salient in all of us who carry her mostly criollo and Corsican blood in our veins. She was a woman to be reckoned with, even in her last years when she at first started joking that St. Peter had lost his list because he didn't remember to call her to him, and then, more recently and heartbreakingly, when she raged at God and at her revered San Martín de Porres for forgetting her and allowing her to live way beyond the point when she could possibly appreciate living.

I raged, too, praying to San Martín and summoning her sister to come and claim her. But they didn't seem to listen. She lived on, and on, and on, against the very essence of her will.

My abuela was always -- for the almost 47 years I've been around -- a source of devoted love and support to me. When I called her house on Saturday, after my mother told me everyone was gathered there, my favorite uncle told me that the last coherent thing he heard her say was a question on whether I'd graduated with my Ph.D.

My abuela was a fantastic cook who never measured the ingredients in the wonderful dishes she concocted, and who was always reciting recipes to me over the phone or in person, in the hopes that I would never run out of savory things to cook for my husband, whom she adored. She never seemed to remember that my husband likes to cook so that I don't have, like her, to be solely responsible for his or my sustenance.

She would often tell him the story of how when she was a teacher, she'd have to walk to work shortly after dawn and then walk home for lunch to cook arroz, habichuelas, carne y frituras and how she'd have to repeat the routine again in the afternoon, when her three sons and husband got home.

A natural teacher who loved imparting knowledge of any kind (that's why I think she tried to have me learn to sew), she long ago gave me her meticulously typed lesson plans for Spanish verb conjugations, which I still have but have rarely used. They are in ancient, brown and brittle paper and I cherish them because they represent to me her desire to spread knowledge and to share what she knew with us.

Back in the days when she was younger and could cook, she would treat us to the best arroz y habichuelas on the island, the best Puerto Rican-style Spanish pepperoni pizzas, and the most delicious fresh limeade and mango-lime juice that I ever had or will have. Her jugo de guanábana was legendary, and up until she was simply too elderly and frail to do so, she was not below getting out her machete and going to her back yard to cut off a huge racimo de plátanos from her plantain tree so she could fry up the best tostones in the land.

But once she lost feeling in both hands she had to stop cooking because she started scalding and singeing herself but not noticing that she had done so because she couldn't feel the burn. Thus, she was prohibited from cooking and so her slow and painful decline began, especially when the burnings were followed by several bad falls. The last one put her, finally, on her death bed.

My abuela also had a quirky sense of humor and would even laugh at herself. I used to love to hear her little peals of laughter. She also appreciated ceremony and attention, and I remember the time, many years ago, when she waited for me to visit her on the day of her birthday, and when I arrived, she grabbed my hand and led me slowly toward the kitchen, where she had a small piece of cake there with a candle that she had me light for her. Then, together, we sang Feliz cumpleaños a ti for her. That memory still breaks my heart so many, many years later.

My abuela was a complex and often difficult human being, in whom the good things mixed with the bad, like in all of us. But I choose to remember her for all the good she did, for all the love she gave, for all the strength she mustered and for all the resilience she showed.

Yesterday, I lit a memorial candle in front of a picture I took several years ago, one that no longer represents what she looks like today, but one that is exactly as I wish to remember her. Last night, around the same time she died, the shadow of a figure appeared in my room and startled me out of sleep.

I was calmed by the thought that it must be my grandmother, who'd come to bid me goodbye. And now I know I can pray to her because, as one of her caretakers told me on Saturday, she is, finally, un ser de luz.

Abuelita, for as long as I live, I will love and honor and remember you. Your full heart and your legacy will not die with you. Abuelita, te quiero mucho. Descansa, por fin, en paz.