Sweet Savory Sustainable

I’ve been struggling to find the words for the emotions I’ve been carrying these past several days. Writing helps me make sense of things when I feel lost.

It is a strange kind of grief to mourn someone while they are still alive and then mourn them again when they are gone. Some doors in life close and reopen over and over. For years, whenever that door opened, I was there. This last time, when it finally opened again, I was no longer standing there waiting.

Still, I move forward holding onto the hope that she was proud of me. That even if she didn’t like the choices I had to make, she understood why I had to break the cycle.

She was 51 when I was born. I think from day one, she knew my life was not going to be easy because her firstborn daughter was my mother. I know she tried her best to help. I was her first grandchild and her first granddaughter. Looking back, she treated me like her last child. I was the only grandchild for over 10 years, so I got to experience a world so different from her children before me and the grandchildren after me.

She walked me to school. She made me breakfast every single day. On weekends, she would pull out the griddle, and we would make Bisquick pancakes, bacon, eggs, and always orange juice and fresh fruit. She taught me how to cook. She taught me how to care for a family. She taught me how not to give up. We would walk downtown on hot summer days and get Baskin-Robbins. She would get a scoop of pralines and cream. I would get mint chip. We would go to the movies. She took me to see Ghostbusters, Top Gun, Amadeus, and Can’t Buy Me Love… so many movies. She loved the Sunday newspaper comics. She would cut out Marmaduke for her youngest daughter and Garfield for me. She would always cut out newspaper articles and leave them on the counter for their intended recipient.

She had a nightly routine of a shower, tea, and usually Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, and MASH*. She loved to walk. After dinner, if it was nice out, we would go for walks through the neighborhood. We would hit tennis balls against the wall at the high school gym during the summer. She would hold part-time jobs at the post office and apricot orchard, and volunteer at the St. William’s rummage sale, where I was able to be with her despite her having to work. Every year, I would help her organize clothes and toys for the sale. We would spend hot summers cutting apricots with old ladies speaking Spanish faster than my tiny ears could capture. We would eat lunch in the hot sun by the trailers and then work with the ladies while the men swapped out the trays of apricots. It was so hot, but we would have a freezer filled with dried apricots for years and years because of that work. She was an amazing cook. She would make a huge pot of arroz con pollo when her youngest daughter came home from college. She would bake cookies. I was always at her side to help.

Family gatherings were so important to her. She was at the helm of every holiday meal, and I was always her helper. I can remember an apricot, peach, and apple tree in her backyard. She made jam and applesauce from those trees. Every year, Tita and Tito would show up with veggies and eggs, Tito would prune her trees, and the sisters would talk until they couldn’t anymore. We would always bake cookies before they arrived. I can remember, every visit, Tita warning my grandmother about my mother’s behavior and lack of parenting. I was too young to fully understand those conversations, but because the youngest child was 12 years older than me, and I was the only grandchild, I saw, heard, and experienced more than I ever should have. I remember watching Grandpa push Grandma when he was mad, or being the passenger when Grandma would drive through the neighborhood to see if Grandpa was at his girlfriend’s house. I remember how she had to be the one to deliver the bad news when my dad would not show up for his assigned weekend and my mom was already into her night out. She did her best to protect me from my mother’s inability to parent. As I got older, she defended me when no one else would. I went along for the ride on everything she had to manage as a mother to her four children and me as her grandchild. It was always Grandma doing the heavy lifting, and I watched it all unfold.

I was the sounding board. My grandmother had my grandfather, but he worked full time as a lineman. Even when retired, he was a yard duty and janitor at my elementary school, and he helped drive for the Senior Center, so he was gone a lot. Her kids were in their late teens and twenties, so I was it. I was always with Grandma. When my mother experienced abuse at the hands of my brother’s father, she took us in without question. When my mother went back and I refused, she defended me. She allowed me to stay. She took me in when I truly needed it.

I will forever be grateful for the time I spent living with her and my Tita in my early twenties. Two old Spanish ladies, tough as hell. I was living with the Golden Girls. It was not easy being 21 and having rules. She did her best to help me allocate my income and give me a place to study while I was there. She did not have to do any of it. It was not her responsibility from day one, but she made it hers.

I could write a book about my life with Dolly. She was the youngest of more siblings than I can count on two hands. A family who traveled here from Spain, settling in the fields of what is now downtown Mountain View. She had a face like a doll, thus Dolly, but she was Louisa Angela. She was my grandma by birthright, but in heart, my mother.

I will always love you, Grandma. Thank you for the life you gave me. I wish it could have been different, but things had to change. I must stand up for myself, not for me, but for my sons. I know deep down you understand. I know you do not like it. I can hear your voice telling me, “Honey… sweetie, listen to this old lady.” I did, Grandma, and that is why my boys are thriving. I wish we had more time. I wish you never had to be put in the positions you were put in. I am indebted to you for stepping up when no one else did. I love you. Thank you, Grandma, aka GG.

9/7/1925 – 3/13/2026