Vignettes of a Family, Part 2
What I’ve Heard and What I Know
Part 2
I always knew my mother’s mother, Rosalía. She loved me and I still love her. Sometimes, like two Sundays ago on the eve of a new moon in our shared sun sign of Cancer, it feels like she’s talking to me, telling me she still loves me too.
Abuela’s parents died young, around 1940-something. They were allegedly hexed by a Haitian who was jealous of my great-grandmother Cira Angela because this hexing woman’s beloved (an Afro-Guajira fisherman, whom I’ve only ever heard referred to as el “Negro Cepeda”) had left her for Cira, besotted by her blonde hair and green eyes. Abuela Rosalía never told me this story, my mother is the one with the details which involve voodoo, snakes, a poisoned brew, and small-town Venezuelans in conflict with newly arrived Haitians.
Abuela was tasked with raising herself and her brother and they eventually found their way to being raised in a convent where the nuns would abuse my grandmother for being left-handed, sinistra, a mark of the devil. She learned to use her right hand and loathed writing. In adulthood she reverted to her left hand but was always self-conscious about her grammar and penmanship. Writing was a chore and the only time she felt drawn to it outside of duty was to make notes in her Bible study journal. I know all this, about the nuns and writing as a chore, because Abuela told me so and because my mom reminded me of it two Sunday afternoons ago when a letter fell out of a pile of papers she was sorting at the dining table while I brunched:
above recording, a lil’summer night chat and my reading of the letter
below, translation of the letter
Translation.
I’ve translated as faithfully as possible and have punctuated just as she did or didn’t.
April 3 year 2003
My beloved and always remembered Ivana, today I can’t be still because I want to write these lines to tell you that your abuela loves you very much and that I never forget you and you’re always in my thought(s) and heart
I hope that you write me and tell me how you’re doing with your studies, and how you’re getting ready for spring break, I know that you like to write and the holidays (vacations), when you pray don’t stop asking our Lord Jesus, for your abuelita Rosalía, so that soon I may return to be with you all again
Say hi your dad and mom and to your twins (my sisters) and you get a big hug and many kisses from your abuelita Rosalía.
<3 <3 I love you
Abuela, who did not enjoy writing, wrote to me while undergoing chemotherapy in Michigan. She was staying with her son’s family which allowed for more affordable care than if she’d been treated in Virginia.
Abuela, whose body is now ash in a cemetery a few zip codes over, reached out through time and space on Sunday, July 12, 2026. Her birthday was just around the corner, on July 15.
Curious. Saturday, before the letter’s appearance I’d been existentially talking out loud in my room, alone. Trying to work out if I considered myself a writer or not…
April 3, 2003, I was nine going on ten; much has changed since then:
Abuela Rosalía returned to VA and lived four more years before dying of breast cancer in 2007. Her daughter and son-in-law divorced. Her Ivana grew up to be a non-believer. Her younger grand-daughters (the twins) are now individuated and accomplished adults. They remain believers.
Two things haven’t changed:
I still like vacations.
I still like to write.
Fun fact: I am the eldest and left-handed. My mother is the eldest and left-handed. Her mother was the eldest and left-handed.
