What I learned about LOVE..

My grandfather banged on our front door, it was about 11:30 at night on a school night and he wouldn’t let up. My grandmother and I were alone in the apartment and I needed to go to sleep because work required me to get up by 6 A.M.

I opened the door and there he was, a 70 something year old man letting me know he had to come in and talk to my grandmother. ‘Pa, it’s late.’ I tried reasoning with him while I looked down the hallway to see if my grandmother was awake. She would be standing by her bedroom door if she was, but she wasn’t.

Lowering my voice I said, ‘Papi, I have to get up early tomorrow. Go home.’
‘Tengo que hablar con tu mamá!’ Trans: ‘I have to speak to your mother!’

This scene was not the first time played out in my life. This time I was 39 and it was tamer than the ones that I witnessed in my lifetime. My grandfather and my grandmother had one of the most tormentuous love stories I’ve lived. I include myself because too many ‘lovers’ somehow forget that if there are children, those children are either along for the beautiful ride or hostages in a war they wage and call ‘love’. And that was us when we were children, collateral damage.

In the past, as a child, my aunt would be the one to answer the door when my grandfather came, asking to come in. Sometimes he would be let in and sometimes he would be struck down with the broomstick. It all depended on how he greeted my aunt or the mood my aunt was in. When he was let in, he sat in the living room with his grandkids hanging on and over him. He was jolly and gregarious. Although sometimes his choice of topics got him into trouble and would lead to him getting told to leave.. by my aunt.

As a child I never understood the topics, or the conversations because I wasn’t alive when the origin of the pain happened. We were never informed in detail about their history, his history. He gambled. He didn’t prioritize his family. These were the reasons given but grandma had not one, not two, not three, not even four kids with grandpa.. she had 6 children from this ‘maldito’. Trans: damned person. Really grandma?! You couldn’t learn the lessons with the first offsprings?

Their ‘love’ story spanned over two countries and decades of what seemed more like grief than joy. There were more hateful words and accusations than laughter and happiness between them and so it was normal. And tonight it happened again as I attempted to close the door, I looked back towards my grandmothers bedroom door and there she was. ‘Dejalo entrar.‘ she says. Trans: Let him in. I shook my head expressing my disapproval as he walked in with a swagger, as if to say ‘She’ll always choose me’ because I knew how this would end.

He proceeded to the living room in the dark talking to himself. My grandmother went back to bed and so did I. As his booming voice faded in my sleep, an argument ensued and once again I awoke to a screaming match between them. As I walked to the living room, I threatened my grandfather with calling the police if he didn’t leave. ‘Que?! Te atreverias a llamar a la policia?’ Trans: What?! You would dare call the police?
I would. I was so exhausted of this. Of them. Of the whole thing. Of their example of Love.

I dialed 9-1 and waited for his apprehension to leave to hit the last 1. His look of disgust and indignation and my grandmothers indifference did it. The last 1, clicked.

I wasn’t a kid anymore and I spoke to them as I never had before: ‘Ustedes no se cansan? Siempre en lo mismo. No se dan cuenta que por ustedes sigo soltera. Por este bendito ejemplo de amor que nos han dado! Haciendonos creer que esto es normal? Que es asi que se trata a las personas que aman?‘ Trans: ‘Don’t you get tired? Always at it. Do you not realize that because of this, I am still single. Because of this holy example of love that you have given us! Making us believe this is normal? This is the way you treat people you love?’

The officers came yet after seeing my grandfather, they simply escorted him towards the exit. ‘Can you give me a ride home?’ he asked in Spanish to the Spanish speaking officer. ‘No sir, we are not a taxi service.’ ‘Then why do I pay taxes?!’

That was my grandfather.

He loved to laugh. He didn’t sweat the ‘small stuff’, whatever he felt was small stuff. And he was serious about certain things and he was stingy. That is how I remember him as his granddaughter but you may get a different version if you ask his son or daughters. He was cruel, selfish, reacted violently on impulse and he never said ‘I’m sorry’. I can see how that can sour a relationship, as someone that has worked twenty something years with young adults, and how important the love of a father is and can be.

My grandfather is long gone and my grandmother years after.
This June will be her first year gone and while I can’t credit her for learning what love is between two individuals, I acknowledge the love she demonstrated to those that taught me about love, my primohermanos. Through them and my brothers I have witnessed what genuine and healthy love looks like, it grows, it warms, it protects, it nurtures, it messes things up and cleans and heals and makes mistakes and forgives and grows..

Thank you Googie, Eti, Michi, La Taicha, Bani, Coco, Lexi, Leo… for teaching me what love looks like.

I have been blessed with a partner that loves and cares for me at times I don’t. He is someone I thought I would never have.
Crossed my path when I was ok with growing old by myself but God had other plans and I thank Them.
Eternally.