Time flyes. So expressions say. Today I’ve been thinking about many things... I’ve just come back from vacation with family for 10 days. My hubs family that adopted me 10 years ago.  I’m one of the many grand-kids now, which helps when you come from a family like mine. Broken to pieces, but with so much love, nothing really matters.

I’ve always known about the family you create. The people that make the day to day worth a million bucks, and help you get out of bed everyday. I’ve talked about them many times, and would never get tired of doing so.

But this week, was all about falling in love with the concept of family again. The concept of the people you are related to no matter how different. No matter, how little in common you have, or dislike one another. It’s ties, it’s love. So many people, me being one of them, fights against the feeling constantly. Because letting people in... hurts. Silly enough the ties are already there...So tangible, it took me by surprise.

Last week I got to adore my daughters, and play until we dropped. We stayed up so late...we were too tired to care. I slept everyday of the week with my eldest and my little one by my side. I read stories, swim, play rockband, hugged them so many times I lost count. Told them I love them, zillions of times, to the point they would both rolled their eyes at me. I wished to be able to freeze them in time. Keep them pure, small, so they’ll love me the way I’m. Broken, crazy, confused, insecure. The inexperience mom they got in this package that had no clue what she was getting into... How to make it work. How to make them happy.

My oldest daughter told her cousin, “My mom will totally play with us, I have a rocking mom, didn’t you know? “
Her cousin answered “I know your mom is super- cool, you are so lucky Victoria.”
That  was the most proud moment of my life. By far.
As a parent I live terrified of becoming obsolete, boring. Terrified of becoming too old to understand... To hard to reach...

Still I think of the moments when my kids, kids, might reach out to me someday.  When wise wrinkles take over my smile and gray hair invades my head.
My twin today gave me some sad news. Her grandfather is not doing so well. She is going to be traveling to Indiana to see him. The thought brought back so many things.


I thought about how different my life would have been if my grandma would have been on it. How much more stubborn I would have turned. How much more love I would have known.
At night sometimes i wonder If make her proud. If there is a sly resemblance on the way we think or act. If my mark in this world, would ever, resemble her huge milestone of creating a home out of thin air, for two super high strong little girls. Like my mom and my aunt, making so many sacrifices on the way, even fighting cancer, until it took over her life.

She’s been gone for 28 years. Still there isn’t one day that doesn’t go by that I don’t wish she was here. She gave me life when I was nothing. She gave my mom hope when she wasn’t sure.  She gave me so much love as a baby I can’t seem to forget her, when I shouldn’t even remember her. Isn’t that what love is? The strange sly invisible lines that tie us to one another forever. No matter how crazy or out of the ties we walk, you can see the marks. Feel them in your skin. In the depths of your heart, where nobody else can. It’s your secret. Your painful bargain to bare. To figure out, because you are the only one that knows how it really feels inside.

A year and half ago. My grandfather passed away.  He was my grandmother’s ex husband. He was the man that chose to leave. Chose fancy cars, young woman that were almost his daughters age. He went definitely off the beaten path. Cheated, conned you name it, I’m sure he had done it. Still he was my grandfather, the only one I’ve ever known...

I wasn’t in Buenos Aires when he passed. I wish I would have. My aunt said he was hallucinating seeing my mom and I in the room everyday. Part of me thinks my heart wanted to be there so badly that he could see me. That I was there in spirit, and he knew it.

Still I ‘ve been mad at him for so many things. Things that didn’t matter anymore, things that were beyond us years ago. Fights that weren’t even my own fights. That I was too proud to let go. That I needed to move on from.

I guess it took me this long. To let go. When I saw his place of rest back home in Buenos Aires, and cried like a little girl, I was still in pain. Most of all I was mad. With myself. For being so selfish, so stupid, for not letting him know, how much I’ve always loved him. Even when he was a mess. When he had no place to go. When he had lost everything. When he pulled my passed grandmother’s photos and wallpaper his room, regretting everything he’s done in the last 40 years of his life. Telling me how much he still loved her, and much he wished to be forgiven by her. To deserved her forgiveness someday.

She had been gone for 28 out of those 40 years. Still her ties were there, on him after all the heartache and suffering. All the havoc and despair that break up provoked in my mom and aunt’s life.  The only family I knew for many years. At the end of the day, he choose to come back. Years of mistake to understand love. Years of solitude to believe the feeling existed. To let love walk in. To let love embrace him just like she did a long time ago. To embrace his own kids.

As tears blur my eyes while type this Grandpa, know that I’ve miss you every day. I love you I hope now that It’s written you know it, as much as I have all this time. Know that mom, has been broken since you left, and Lily, hasn’t been the same. That you’ve been missed, and the loss is still there and always will be. That the ties to our hearts are strong no matter the distance, no matter the years, no matter the mistakes. Family remains. Yours stays with us forever, until we meet again. Soon enough. You have always been loved, and always will be.