As you wish

"As you wish"
Westley in Princess Bride

This is me at 4 months old. Two months later we moved to Santa Clara.

When we had moved to Santa Clara (I was a year or younger), abuelo would spend time with us in Santa Clara and he would spend that time being my nanny. During those years, Neni (my brother) and I had also a young nanny, Olivia, but I only remember mi abuelo.

As mamita told it, we would spend a great part of the day at the park. I would wear only shorts (mamita believed in children having a lot of sun) and my white orthopedic boots (an attempt to correct flat feet). I was also chubby: I think that, because mamita had gone through scarcity and even a famine as a child, Ofelia, la cocinera, made for Neni and me a child's equivalent of abuelo's daily feast.

One thing I cherished about abuelo is that I could rely on him; he was my friend.

I loved the swings and he would obediently take me when I wished. One day, as he pushed me, he started teaching me how to move my legs to swing myself. Oh, how triumphant and exhilarated I felt as I arched toward the sky on my own!

Abuelo also quelled my anxiety over death. I became obsessed with death ("What is death??" - I must have overheard a conversation) and abuelo - moved by my pleas - started taking me to the morgue where papito worked. We checked the freezers unsuccessfully several days until, one day, when he opened the bottom freezer, there was a body. I asked him to slide the body out and peered at a white-haired man, peacefully resting, dressed in a suit with a panama hat resting on his chest. Anxiety drained out of me: death was peaceful like sleep. Hand in hand, my question answered, abuelo led me out of the morgue.

Another day, as we rested on a park bench outside the church, we silently watched people walking in to attend Mass. Abuelo had quite a reputation as a prankster (I found out much later) and he turned to me and asked me if I would sneak into the church, slide under the pews all the way to the altar and spring up as the priest stood nearby; then run fast out of the church. I think now that he not only wanted a disruption of Mass but also to cause mayhem: if startled by me, the priest would have dropped the host ... I shudder thinking of it.

Wanting to please abuelo, I sneaked into the solemn church and slid all the way to the front pew. I could see the priest's shoes and I slid forward a bit more and glanced up his body. As I looked up at the priest, fear gripped me. Much faster than in the way in, I slid back out. Still frightened, I ran to abuelo who waited for me on the bench. He said nothing about my failure and I loved him even more for that.