Today, I desperately miss my Abuela.

Today, I desperately miss my abuela. I miss the smell of the blankets she’d wrap me up in at night when I laid down next to her staring at the tiny old tv in the corner of our room playing Quinceanera. I miss the way she’d hide me between her legs when my Abuelo was looking for me or when he was making me cry how she would defend me and chase him away. I miss her food and her laugh; I miss the slow, crackly cadence of her voice when she would speak. The shallow breaths she would take when she moved too fast and how she made my brain just go quiet when she asked me to sit beside her as she took a break. I miss the way she taught me how to count pesos in her store and how she always let me work with her in her store. I miss the way I felt so dignified and important when she asked me to go get tortillas for her and how she always served me first for doing that. I miss the nights where we could hear the crickets and cooing city birds under her roof as the rain poured and i sat between her legs on that blue floral tile and how I had never felt safer than I did back then. I remember wishing and praying with all my childhood might that I would get to stay with her, that I wouldn’t have to make the journey home again and I could stay with the one person who I knew loved every single part of me. The person who loved the crazy hair on my head, wild and untamed and so mistreated. The person who loved every fingertip and the way her speckled freckled hands would warm them up on cold evenings. I never knew how cold summer nights in Mexico could be until I realized it wasn’t the location or the climate it was the pain and suffering inside of me that was make me freeze and it was her warmth and love that was keeping my little heart beating.

I miss her so much it hurts to breathe sometimes. She’s been gone for 15 years now, I have lived more life without her than with her, but it doesn’t feel like that. Her love for me was so mighty and weathered and strong that every year that passes, I still feel it. Every year without her, I’m still chasing the feeling of her warmth. I still cry because I know what it felt like to be so completely loved and I just don’t think I’m ever going to feel that again. I am so maimed and bruised by the loss of her and I will spend a lifetime mourning her. I will spend a lifetime trying foods that pale in comparison to her rich flavor, she who could make one pot of Fideo taste like heaven. I cook and I can’t capture it, I can’t find the flavoring or the missing seasoning that was her love alone.

Today I miss my abuela.

I miss her birds, and the way she cooed at them with such gentle care and adoration. I miss how she would tell me about how all the creatures deserved our stewardship, I miss what it felt like to squeal in excitement when she placed a bird a top my head. I miss the way she’d comb her gray hair after a shower, I miss the way she would let me lotion her feet and slide her socks on after her shower. I miss the way she always had a job for me because she knew I needed dignity so fucking bad. I needed to feel useful, because she knew that I was made to feel like such a burden and so useless or like I wasn’t important and she always put me first. First serving, first good morning, first to get a job assigned, first to taste the meal she was brewing, first to answer the ring at the door, first to get a hug from her, first to be kissed and held when my plane would touch down and i would finally make it out the taxi straight into her arms. I was always first when I was with her and I think in some way the few years I had to be her first, were the pinnacle of survival for the last 28 years. I wasn’t my mother’s first. I wasn’t my father’s first. I wasn’t my sisters or my brothers, or my aunt or uncles or my cousins or any who has ever crossed my path, not the friends or the romantic partners, but I was my abuela’s first. I was my abuela’s first. I was my abuela’s first. I was my abuela’s first. I was my abuela’s first.

Today, I desperately miss my abuela and I had to write it down.