Lola in the white house

just read that Marian Robinson will join the Obamas in the white house.

buti naman.

my Lola lived with us for a number of my childhood years in illinois.
she and my Lolo and my other grandmother, Mama Big, looked after us when my parents were at work.

Lola would cook our breakfast and our merienda everyday.
she would look after us when we were swimming.
and fry cheeseburgers on white bread so that we could eat them,
dripping with grease,
in our wet bathing suits,
by our janky, old above-ground pool.

she and the other olds would watch as we rode our bikes up and down our loooong ass driveway and fly down "suicide hill," which as it turns out, is a gentle slope, measuring maybe 10 degrees.

the olds would watch as the Villanueva girls would put on enthusiastic gymnastics shows or song and dance numbers...on roller skates.

there was a small raised garden bed on the side of the house where Lola would harvest kamatis.
i can't remember what else grew there.
maybe talong.
i just remember kamatis.

the morning before we went on a long driving vacation bound for the arch in st. louis, i remember Lola picking her tomatoes before we left. there was this one huge green one that seemed like it was as big as my face. i remember being so amazed to find that it turned ruby red, perfectly ripened on the kitchen counter, by the time we came back. i thought it was some kind of magic.
(i still kinda do.)

ah, youth.

one of the things my youngest sister Sammy will always remember about Lola, daw, is how Lola always let her roller skate in the house when our mother wasn't home.

now, if that ain't some Love.
i don't know what is.