Thelma Reyna Abuela Memories

Abuela's Imprint on My Heart

Thelma T. Reyna

My maternal grandparents were born in poverty in South Texas and had no formal education. Papá Grande, or Apá, as we children called him, was functionally illiterate, only able to sign his name. My grandmother, Maria Guerra, our Amá, was fond of saying, with understated drama, "Mis pies nunca han cruzado el portal de una escuela." My feet have never crossed the threshold of a schoolhouse.

Amá, like her husband, was raised in a tiny, dusty ranch populated with a few roosters, hens, goats and perhaps a horse. But my grandmother, somehow, somewhere, taught herself to read and write in Spanish, our native tongue. This is all I know: she taught herself, as she often proclaimed! And beautifully taught, as I saw in letters she wrote me when I left Kingsville, college degrees in hand, newly-married, to forge my career and build my own family in California.

But before I emigrated to California, Amá had already left her imprint on my heart. She was widowed soon after my parents divorced. My mother rose before dawn each day to drive 50 miles each way to work, returning home at dusk, with nine children left at home alone. So Amá moved into our large, aging house to look after us. She cooked and cleaned, laundered, and fussed to get us out the door to school each day. 

Amá quietly in a corner on midnights when I studied late at the dining table, the rest of our house asleep. She kept me company, silent, to show me her support. One particularly humid night, I fell asleep, face in book, and woke to see Amá standing beside me, gently waving a paper fan around my head.

Yes, indeed, she left her imprint on my heart, my precious Amá, she of the perennial flowered aprons with pockets deep enough to hold her Catholic missal and wire-rimmed glasses. 

Amá of hands roughened from tending to so many of us. Amá of the signs of the cross she bestowed on our foreheads before we left the house. 

Amá of endless dichos for imparting her wisdom to us, especially, "Dime con quien andas, y te digo quien eres."

Amá of gentle eyes and humble voice, of unconditional love for even the rowdiest scofflaw amongst us, of putting others first. 

My brothers called her "Saint Grandma" for even they, in the scant attention they paid her, recognized her goodness.