Si no es santo es porque no la cuelgan.
If she is not a saint, it’s only because they don’t hang her on the wall.
After we check on Grandma’s house, Mom and I decide to stop in on Grabielita Ortega. Neither of us has spoken to her in perhaps a decade. She and Grandma were dear friends, as well as relatives through marriage. When I was growing up, we visited Grabielita and her son Roger, a wonderful soul born into a body with multiple disabilities. Grabielita cared for him for all of his fifty-four years. He never left his bed, and she never left him. Because of this and because of her perpetually upbeat and selfless manner, Grandma considered Grabielita a saint, and I know of no one in Chimayó who would disagree.
Grabielita lives less than a mile from the Plaza del Cerro in the Ranchitos neighborhood, on land that belonged to her father-in-law, Rumaldo Ortega. Mom says he claimed the land through the federal government’s pequeñas tenencias program, the Homestead Act. Ranchitos is located along an arroyo that carries water only during summer storms. The fields and fine orchards here get their water from the Acequia de la Cañada Ancha, which flows from the tiny Río Quemado just upstream in Río Chiquito. It took some clever homegrown engineering and hard labor to divert the Quemado through the hills and into the Cañada Ancha arroyo, but a large part of Chimayó owes its existence to the ditch.
Rumaldo was an older brother to my great-grandpa, Reyes Ortega, so he was my grandmother’s uncle. They say Rumaldo married Rosarito Rodríguez when she was only twelve or thirteen years old and he was twenty-three. Rumaldo and Rosarito’s son Anastacio married Grabielita and had a long and fruitful marriage, although Grabielita has been a widow now for forty-five years.
Grabielita breaks into a giant smile and hugs us warmly as only primos will. Her greeting to us, called out in an emotion-laden Spanish with an inflection and idiom all her own—“¡Buenas tardes! ¡Mire quién viene!—Good afternoon! Look who’s coming!”—brings me back instantly to those times when Grandma and I used to walk over to see her. At ninety-eight, she is one of those few remaining in Chimayó who seldom use English and, if they do, modulate it with such an accent that it sounds like a foreign tongue.
Grabielita’s sister Eremita just died a week ago, at the age of 106, Grabielita tells us, and then she enumerates the rest of her seven siblings and their statuses. All five of her brothers are dead, but two sisters remain alive.
“¿Sabes cuántos nietos tengo?—Do you know how many grandchildren I have?” she asks me. And then she answers her own question, “Nietos tenía diez y ocho, pero dos muertos.—I had eighteen, but two are dead.” Then she turns to my mother, “¿Te acuerdas de la Joanna, la que mataron? Y nunca supieron quién la mató.—Do you remember Joanna, the one they killed? And no one ever found out who did it.”
“Pero tengo vivos sixteen.—But sixteen are still alive. Y tengo great-grandchildren, thirty,” Grabielita goes on. “Y luego tengo quince great-great-grandchildren.—And I have fifteen great-great-grandchildren,” she continues, mixing it up with Spanish and English as she names them all. She breaks out laughing.
“¡Ya eres nanarabuela!—You’re already a great-great-grandma!” Mom exclaims.
“¡O, linda!—Oh, darling!” Grabielita squeals and chuckles.
“Yo tengo quince nietos y ocho bisnietos.—I have fifteen grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren,” Mom adds.
“¿Ocho no más?—Only eight?” Grabielita comments. “No es mucho.—That’s not much.”
“Yo tengo una hija.—I have one daughter,” I pitch in.
Startled, Grabielita asks, “¿Una no más?—Just one? ¿Y nietos, nada?—And no grandkids?”
A bit taken aback at my lack of reproductive prowess, she asks Mom about her children. Mom names her five kids and, when Grabielita asks, tells her where each lives.
“¿Una hija en Cundiyó?—You have a daughter in Cundiyó?” Grabielita asks. “¿Con quién se casó allí?—Whom did she marry there?” she queries, curious because she herself comes from Cundiyó.
“O, se casó con un gringo.—Oh, she married a gringo,” my mother says. “No es Cundiyoso.—Not a Cundiyoso.”
“¿Cuándo venites la última vez?—When were you last here?” Grabielita asks my mother.
“La Elena y yo venimos yo no sé cúando.—Helen and I came some time back.”
“La Elena, ¿cómo está? ¿Ya es viejita también?—And Helen, how is she? Is she an old lady now, too?” Grabielita asks, giggling.
“Es poca viejita.—She’s kind of old,” Mom chuckles. “Somos de la misma edad.—She and I are the same age.”
“¿La misma edad? ¡Qué lindo!—The same age? Oh, how wonderful,” Grabielita exclaims with another giggle.
“Toda mi familia vive aquí cerca.—All my family lives nearby,” Grabielita goes on, proudly. “Nomás los bebés, Tom y Harold, viven lejos, en Albuquerque.—Only the babies, Tom and Harold, live far away, in Albuquerque,” she adds, speaking of her sons, who are in their sixties.
Grabielita describes her children and grandchildren living around her. They’re on all sides, and they come to see her daily.
“Y luego tenía a mi Miguelito.—And then I had my Miguelito. Vivía aquí cerca, en su traila, hijo de la Clara y el Arturo.—He lived right here in the trailer. He was Arturo and Clara’s son. Pero se murió de una enfermedad.—But he died of an illness.”
Grabielita’s granddaughter, Peggy Sue, comes in and hugs my mother.
“Look how beautiful you are!” she exclaims.
“Venían a visitarme.—They came to visit me,” Grabielita informs her, nodding toward us proudly.
“¡Qué bonito, Grandma!—How wonderful, Grandma,” Peggy Sue replies, holding Grabielita’s face in her hands and beaming a mile-wide smile. Then she embraces me warmly, even though she and I have never met. She jumps into the conversation and elaborates on the story of the recent death of Miguel, her brother.
“He had been very sick and living away, but then he came home and moved in right here, next door to Grandma. He held a very special place in her heart. He was her first grandchild.
“And he was waiting to see little Grandma. I felt it. One of his uncles took her to see him. And within two hours of seeing her—he got her hand and she prayed with him. And he said, ‘Jesus loves me,’ and he closed his eyes and passed away. He had a very beautiful death. But he had to wait for Grandma. ¿Qué no, Grandma?—Right, Grandma?”
Grabielita shrugs and says, “Sí . . . ay, linda. Así es la vida.—Yes . . . oh, dear. Life is that way.”
Cada uno en su corazón juzga al ajeno.
Each in his heart judges others. (You judge others by what you are yourself.)
Candil de la calle, oscuridad de su casa.
Lighted candle on the street, darkness at the home. (Said of one who is friendly and outgoing with with strangers, but cruel at home.)
Caras vemos, corazones no sabemos.
We see faces, but we don’t know hearts. (The face doesn’t reveal the heart’s feelings.)
Como canta el abad, responde el sacristán.
Whatever the priest recites, the altar boy answers. (Said of one who doesn’t think for himself but does everything another commands without question.)
Con el colador que medimos vamos ser medidos.
With the strainer that we use to measure, we shall be measured.
Con la vara que mides serás medido.
With the yardstick that you measure others, you shall be measured.
Cuando no le llueve, le gotea.
When it doesn’t rain on him, it drips on him. (Said of a lucky person.)
Cuida tu casa y deja la ajena.
Mind your own house and leave others’ alone.
De cuero ajeno, largas correas.
From someone else’s hide, long straps. (It’s easy to be generous with somebody else’s property.)
De los dos no se hace uno.
From the two of them you can’t make one. (Even together, the two of them are worth nothing.)
Del palo sale la astilla.
From the stick comes the splinter. (Like parent, like child.)
Dos agujas no se pican.
Two needles can’t prick each other. (Said of two people of the same bad temperament.)
El bien y el mal a la cara salen.
Good and evil are reflected in the face.
El diablo no duerme.
The devil doesn’t sleep.