Today it would be my Grandmother Julia's Birthday. I miss her terribly, and sorely regret not having spent more time with her these last few years, and not having learnt more from her when I had the chance.
As with my other lovely Grandmother, I spent a considerably amount of time with Avó Julia when I was a child. Every weekend my Mother would drop me off at the house of one of my Grandparents, and I would always cry when Sunday afternoon came around and I had to go back home. Not because it was bad there, but because I loved my Grandmothers so much. With Avó Bié I would go to the movies, to the zoo, out to lunch, to see plays, the circus, concerts. With Avó Julia we'd usually stay at home, and she would teach me how to cook, how to crochet, to knit, to embroider, and she would do all these things with a perfection I haven't seen in anyone else in my 26 years of life. She was a beautiful Woman, with an extremely sharp mind, a master organiser, incredible at maths and accounting, and she would've been an incredible business woman if she had had the chance. She made money stretch incredibly far, but no one that ever lived in or visited my Grandparents' home ever saw anything but everything of the best quality, the best food always ready to be laid out on the table, with everything, from jam, to chouriços, to olive oil and wine that they made themselves when in their house in the north of Portugal, with grapes, olives and fruit from their lands.
She was a very ill woman, which suffered a lot from asthma attacks and general respiratory problems, and a breast cancer survivor. But she wouldn't let anyone take on any tasks she thought she could perfectly well do herself, and refused to stay still. She was a survivor, a woman that was left alone with two children to raise in a city that was not her own, as my Grandfather travelled the world in his job. They were star-crossed lovers for years, meeting only when she went to get water from the fountain that her father preferred, as she was the daughter of the manager of a big estate, and my grandfather's family was quite poor, having lost his father quite early in life.
She was the most good natured, nicest, kindest woman I've ever met. I wish I had inherited her sense of responsibility, her perfection in everything she did, her incredible inner strength, her beauty and blue eyes. I wish I could call her and tell her that after years of not paying attention, I'm now learning to embroider, and sew, and crochet, which would make her very happy. I also wish she was here to go to my wedding, as I also know this would make her extremely happy, as she loved Francisco, and the fact that he wants to be a lecturer, and that our children would have doctors for Grandparents.
I really miss you, Avó Julia. I love you very much.
