Abue

My Tia Mague's tribute to my Abuelita today on her birthday....

Today is my mother's birthday, she would have been 97 years old. You wonder why my father Ernesto traveled so far from Germany to live and stay in Mexico? My mother was the reason. She was a quiet woman, her eyes small but a penetrating gaze. Petite in stature and yet a gigantic prescence in our lives. Orphaned as a child she bore almost a nation. A tribe of Kullicks cut off from the roots of the old world, we grew strong, attached, gave shade and refuge to one another. You could say my father gave her the greatest gift of all the love for the written word, teaching her to read and write so that even when the years faded beauty and youth her wisdom has withstood the test of time. Feliz Cumpleanos Mami.

Today my grandmother turns 97. The Azteca who taught me all the songs I know in Spanish, who sat in the quiet sunlight on our back porch every summer reading every book en espanol our little library had to offer, the lady who could knock a baseball into left field at 75 years old, oblivious to the fact that her nylons were rolling up at her ankles as she rounded the bases, the mama who carried me in her arms when my knee caps burned raw from the pavement, in my ear breathing the magical, healing words "sana sana colita de rana," the curandera who pinched off the heads of fresh mint sprigs from our garden to make me a tea of yerba buena for my cramps, time and time again. My abue. the storyteller. my first teacher whose spirit breathes life again through my voice when I roll my R's and when I cradle my own son in my arms it is her words that heal the wounded that dry the tears. Te Extrano mi Abue.