Strong as an Oak - As Liz (classic book list TXT) 📗

As Celine cleaned her closet; she came across an old jacket of hers. She tried it on just to see if it would still fit and if it was still useful to keep. She put her hands in her pockets and came across a photo. She looked at it; she forgot she had put it there. It was a photo of her grandma Alice and her aunt Julie and two cousins. 

Celine saw in that photo that familiar smiling face that had always comforted her. Celine saw more than anybody else could see then. It all started when she saw her grandma smiling while giving her a kiss on the forehead; and some baby aspirin when she was five. She inquisitively asked her grandma how old she was and she said about 60.  Celine thought that’s a long time and for the first time she worried about how long her grandma would be there for her but console herself; “60 is still young” she told her grandma and she laughed. As she fell asleep in the warm room, full of medicine, she looked drowsily at her sleeping grandpa on the other side of the room. How her grandma came to attend him, giving him an injection of insulin and lovingly fixing the pillow and asking if everything was okay. That was one Celine’s earliest memories of her grandma. How she stayed with her at vacations, how she went on accompanying her to the garden. Asking about plants that her grandma graciously answered questions about. While Celine felt like she bothered her parents, who were overburdened with their young sisters. Her grandma always had patience with her. 

During the night her grandma would braid her hair and tell her stories, to the rhythm of the Spanish soap operas.

Her grandma would tell Celine about her living at her hometown in Cajoncitos, MX Celine would imagine her grandma in pigtails attending the chickens or walking by the river, and rough housing the boys.Celines grandma  would tell her about the time she came to the United States and met grandpa and then they fell in love, but she had to go back to her hometown and Celine’s grandpa went after her all the way to Mexico. It was a true love story and how she came in the fifties and she was just 17.How  they got married and how she  had each of my uncles and aunts. And how blessed she was, regardless of how the dramatic climate change had affected her health and her asthma began. The troubles and pressures of being a mother with Mexican customs, and all that while living in the United States. How the family settled on the Segundo Barrio, all the way to Celine’s mothers growing up. How they handle the family business of used furniture and appliances. How Celine’s mom, Andrea met Alberto and Celine was born.

How she loved to sleep at her side, and listen to her breath so distressed by the asthma but for some reason it comfort her, because being a child it was a clear sign of her grandmas presence. Sometimes Celine would see her grandma get lost in a trance while using her nebulizer, which sounded like a space machine, and Celine would soon fall asleep with her grandmas words I love you very much and Celine would reply I love you very much too, and hug her tightly. Only to wake up that morning with an empty bed but a far enough busy chatter and coffee in the kitchen, and she would get up smelling that breakfast French toast, walked to the kitchen so her grandma could acknowledge she was up, then go back to bed and watch TV and wait till her Granma called her to eat. Her grandma was always busy; one minute at breakfast and another watering her plants, but her French toast where always there in the morning and she just felt so happy so at home. Then when she would finish eating she would do what other girls her age did, make herself busy, and keeping outta of trouble, viewing picture albums or anything of that sort, behaving just to make her grandma happy. And she did. And this special kind of love of closeness grew. 

Celine put the jacket and the picture aside. As she remembered a special keepsake box and went to look for it in the basement. When she came across it, she quickly walked to her room again. She opened the box which contained such gifts that her grandma had given her during the years. The box contained an orange silk pillowcase sewn by Celine’s grandma herself, who was gifted in hand sewing, and crocheting Such things, Celine never learned or had interest in and regretted it now as she hugged the pillow. She put the pillow aside and continued rummaging in the box. Celine came across a small gold plated necklace, how Celine’s grandma had given it to her for her b-day back when she was in second grade. It was one of the best moments in her life; the necklace though was too small for Celine now. Next she came across some dolls, one of porcelain which the head had fallen off from playing too much with it. Other was a type of Barbie doll given to her by her grandma when she was fifteen as was the custom, the last doll before one became a woman. How troubling her life had been as a young woman. 

Years went by when every time Celine could she would spend it with her grandma but time was short.

 Celine looked at the picture some more. Remembering how her grandmas comforted her as she cried because she didn’t think her dad loved her, because he was strict and cold with her. She cried grabbing some pills and saying that she didn’t want to be in this world if her dad didn’t love her. Her grandma consoled her and said, “He loves you” 

but how if he is so mean to me

, and she said I know he loves you, in his own way, don’t doubt it. He just wants you to be strong.”

 And how right was she. At her grandma’s house didn’t feel she had to fit in like in school, or compete with her sisters for her parents love.

Celine’s thoughts continued to when she spent time with her grandma in Vegas visiting her aunt Liz and then at the lake. How her grandma was scared that she would go in the lake because a cousin had disappeared mysteriously at Elephant Butte Lake. Celine was annoyed like any girl her age at how much her grandma took care of her as the years passed by. Still their love and friendship continued, they promised each other that when Celine finished high school and she was 18 she would go live with her. Celine did, if only for a short time, but Celine was having emotional issues that she behaved distant and erratic with her grandma how she regretted now. 

Celine’s thoughts went towards her grandma’s pain and how she consoled her first when her grandmas mom died and then her husband, Celine’s grandpa, and she thought as she sobbed why soon and close in time are they gone, how can I continue with this pain of losing two people I love. But she did continue for her grandma always said, “she was as strong as oak” whenever she had to be tough and encounter a difficult situation. Celine’s grandma spent all her life working to support the family even with her Asthma condition and the two jobs and 6 kids ; and Later a husband bedridden with diabetes.

Her thoughts went back to the day when she got baptized at the Mormon Church because she thought it was her calling and it made her grandma so happy. To this day Celine thinks that she did it to make her grandma happy. And she would, always doing something to make her happy, just like her grandma would do to her. Spoil her, buy her whatever she desired with sacrifice for her grandma didn’t have much but what she had she would give freely even if her hands were empty all the time. Her hospitality and her warm meal of comfort and advice. Celine’s grandma was there when Celine’s parents went through a separation, while her sisters took refuge in teen humdrums. Celine took comfort in her grandma’s hugs and protection.

That  July 4, the whole family gathered for a cook out Celine’s grandma was so happy that she said in a premonitory tone. Seeing all my family gathered even my daughter from outta town Julie is here, I can die happy and she sighed and smiled. The whole family reprimanded her then.

The next week Celine was waiting for her grandma to get out of the hospital for an asthma attack she had been hospitalized from. 
Her grandma came cheerfully to the house with snacks from the hospital for us; Oreos and donuts and juice, and she sat down contently waiting for her son to take her to pick up her meds as usual, but that same afternoon while Celine cleaned the house to welcome her grandma, she received a call from her aunt Liz and then her uncle came in frantically and said my mommy’s dying. Crumbling and tense, it took a while to get to the hospital my uncle was so distracted while Celines heart sank and she prayed nervously and made promises to God, Finally they reached the hospital and they led us up to see her and she had a tube in her mouth and her chest wasn’t moving and people came saying it was over while she had the third and final heart attack that took her away. Celine saw her and cried and said “I was sorry for all the pain I have caused you” and just kept saying like a child “wake up grandma what am I going do without you, please open your little eyes,” begging. But it was pointless .she felt she was gone if she wouldn’t wake up with her voice. As I heard in my head her saying I’m strong as an oak. 

During the ICU Celine begged the nurses to give her a blanket and they looked at her coldly and said no. At that moment the decision came the toughest one that no one wants to hear, the doctor saying she was brain dead and that the decision had to be made to let her go, or put more tubes on her chest and see if she would wake up but he said it was pointless that the family should let her their beloved grandma and mom go. She would only suffer more with more tubes on her chest, and that there was a 0% chance for her to wake up. 

Celine wanted to be alone so she went to the hospital chapel. Then she took the bible that was there and looked for her the book of psalms there she found it was her grandma favorite psalm number 6:2. One such that describe her life and struggles:

“O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.

Have mercy upon me, O lord; for I am weak : O lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed.

My soul is also sore vexed; but thou, O Lord, how long?

Return, O Lord, deliver my soul: oh save me from thy mercies sake.

For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?

I’m weary with my groaning: all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.

Mine eye is consumed because of grief; its waxeth old because of all mine enemies.

Depart from me, al ye workers of iniquity;