For Ester

Today i saw sisterhood of the travelling pants 2...and it was really good. I won't go into detail other than to say that i enjoyed the womanness of it all, but woman things always make me think of my grandma. Not because she was a particularly good example of the kind of woman one should be, but because she knew she wasn't the kind of woman she wanted to be and tried her damndest to make us learn from her mistakes. Then i went for a jog because it was just such a nice day outside and i started listening to an old This American Life about this brother and sister who had this really fucked up relationship with their mom. She would threaten to send them to orphanages and told them having them was her biggest mistake and as they got older the son stopped talking to his mother. But the sister took care of her and called her every night because she realized that there were things about her mom she would never understand and she really did try her best, even though her best was fucked up. This to me embodied my grandma, a terror of a woman full of bitterness and regret who just tried her best but often failed.

But there was a part during SOTTP when Blake Lively's character finds old cards and letters and things that her grandma had sent her over the years. It made me think of my grandma because my grandma was the only person who throughout my life sent me birthday cards. My mom isn't much of a believer in sentimental things and birthday cards are one of those things she just doesn't do. And i saw the rest of my family often enough that birthday cards weren't really ever sent. But my grandma always sent cards in the mail. She did it for all of her grandkids even though she lived no more than 15 minutes away from us and we saw her at least once a week. And i remember watching tv and hearing kids talk about how they looked forward to getting birthday cards from their grandparents because it usually meant they got some large check or a gift card or anything fun and interesting. These were the complete opposite of my grandma's cards. They were never funny or personal, usually some ugly card with tacky flowers or something about how granddaughters are special written in English, even though my grandma didn't read, write, or speak English. And they always said the same thing in her almost disturbingly perfect penmanship. It was a message i can't remember written in Spanish about how she wished me a happy birthday, and a happy life. Every card was the same message no matter if it was my Birthday or Easter or Christmas. And she would address it to me with the name Acosta instead of my last name. Like that was my true last name. She only did this for the girls, but it was like her call to arms, "remember who you are, you are and always will be Acosta women." It's haunting now that i think about it and it's one of the many things i wish i could ask her about, what this name meant to her.

She went into the hospital on december 14th, of 2003 the morning after i came back from my semester abroad, and she died on the 20th. During that week i came home from the hospital one day and there it was in our mail...a Christmas card addressed to me, with $20 (the first i had ever recieved from her) in it, wrapped of course in a well folded tissue. See my grandma had pretty severe OCD and one of her many compulsions was that she would wrap things in tissues or napkins. I opened the card, looked at her hand writing, knowing it would be the last time i would see it, knowing that since she was brain dead, lying in a hospital bed, waiting for her body to catch up with her mind I would never be able to thank her properly for all the cards she had given me that i had so carelessly thrown away throughout my life. I put it back in the envelope, money, tissue and all and placed it in a corner of the kitchen cabinet. It's still there, and sometimes i open it to remember her, to look at the precise folds in the tissue square that she probably creased for half an hour until she got the perfectly symmetrical fold.

And now that i get older i miss those cards and every time my birthday comes around I know that something is lacking. More importantly though i realize how much it cost her to send all of us, her grand children, those cards 3 times a year. My grandma was not a very independent woman. She couldn't drive or take the bus or communicate in English. She depended on one of her five daughters to take her anywhere she needed to go. And as i got older i realized that for her to go to the local super market and pick out what i thought was a tacky card was actually quite a feat. She would have to call one of my aunts or my mom to take her. And then she would take an average of about 3 hours to "get ready." Like i said, she was OCD, so leaving the house was a major event. And those cards that i thought were so impersonal...turns out she would ask her daughters to translate them for her so she could pick one that she felt reflected her thoughts.

This was her at 16, when my grandpa came back from America and decided that he would marry her, the prettiest girl in their town.
at 36 after having 7 children and burying 2.

In her late 40's fluffing my dress because it needed to be perfect for the picture
and in her 50's with her 2 favorite granddaughters.
I believe in naming children after important people, and i often wonder if she would count. She was named after one of the only 2 women who were worthy enough of receiving a book title in the Bible, and whether or not she lived up to that name i just don't know. I asked my mom once if she thought it would be ok to name a daughter after my grandma and she said, "why would you want to destine them to unhappiness like that. Names are supposed to be after people who lived good lives, not people who were miserable." And that's always how i think of her, a woman with the potential for greatness, but the lack of opportunities. And I wonder what she would think of me now, at 26 living on my own away from home, unmarried, no children, no responsibilities, doing exactly what i want to be doing right now. And i think she might be proud, like i was the only one who listened to her and took the things she said to heart. and 1 out of 8 is not bad.