A farewell to Gueli

Yesterday I wrote this:

It's been a tough couple weeks since my mom got the call that her mother, my grandmother, who is 91 years old, is not doing so well. I wrote a little about it during Christmas. My mother has been flying back and forth to Puerto Rico, making sure she is comfortable. This trip, it seems, she's gotten a lot worse and probably won't recover from the pneumonia and weakening of her heart. It's such a mixture of emotions. I mean, she's 91 years old, she's lived to be an old lady but it's the complicated heath issues and limbo ride of life and death that tug at your heart. I talked with her the other day and man, I had to cry because she was just moaning back at me. So sad, she's on the ledge... it reminds me of my aunt/ Titi Desi who passed around Thanksgiving in 2010. The hardest part about seeing your family go is actually seeing or hearing them go. They look different and communicate different especially when they're sick. I have fond memories of visiting my Grandma (Gueli) who lived by herself upstairs in her house right in the center of Ponce. She was a mover and a shaker... she walked all over her town buying groceries and lottery. She was very smiley and giggled a bunch (always putting her hands on her belly yelling out in Spanish "stop, I'm going to pee in my pants" with tears of laughter coming down her eyes). I think she passed this on because my mother, sister and I can make each other laugh so hard / always with tears running down. She was very frugal with money but enjoyed a bit of gambling, not much, just the lottery. She loved to watch her novellas on TV and listened to the radio. She was very very proud of her children and teared up fast when talking about them. I'm happy she got to meet her great grand children, Olivia and Eli, boy did she make them smile.

Things that will always remind me of her: Eating mangoes, Anything Puerto Rico - her name is Selva which translates to jungle - Her name is Jungle! // loud Spanish television // Gazpacho // drying clothes on a line outside // washing dishes at 6am with just a small bowl of soapy water (water conserver) // taking in stray cats (she did this a lot in her home) // and seeing my mother laughing hard // oh and my mom's legs (exactly the same) //

Keep on giggling Gueli!! With so much love to you!!

My mother called me this morning with news that she had passed last night.