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One Important Older Person in My Life
Fr. Juan Noite, S.C.J.
(Venezuela/Portugal)
In our lives there are some people who are important, and we usually remember them from the time when we are children. Usually we remember our grandmothers and grandfathers. Sometimes their memory seems forgotten, but they are important for their simple example to us, stronger than a thousand words.
One of the most important older people in my childhood was my grandmother. She was the mother of my father, and her name was Maria Augusta. I have not many memories of her because I only met her for the first time when my family and I arrived back in Portugal from Venezuela; I was at that time only six years old. I knew her for two years only so my memories of her are few but very good.
Maybe, you would like to know what my grandmother looked like? Well, physically she was small, had grey hair, and she always wore black clothes because when I knew her, she was a widow. Normally I went everyday to her house during the school lunch break. She was very friendly to me and had a beautiful smile. I remember that sometimes I wore a sailor suit to her house, and she used to tease me about this suit; she liked it so much. She had many children, and she was very poor. My father doesn't talk about her very much, but he has great respect for his mother. They were poor but happy, and this is the most important thing.
I remember especially the day of her death because it was one of the saddest days of my childhood. I was very little, but I remember like it was today the sadness of her sons: they had great respect and love for her; and it was also my first experience of death that I can remember. For several years afterwards I could not go to the room where she had been laid out as it made me feel so sad.
Now, twenty years after her death, I still remember with pleasure her kindness and simplicity. I do not have very many memories of her, but I think that I am like her in that I too have her love and her joy of life. Her example is printed in my mind; she was all that you could ask from a grandmother. Maybe she is so special to me also because she is the only grandmother that I knew very well, and she was so kind to me.
Today when I can, I go to her house where my father and his brothers meet several times, principally on the weekends. Her memory is present today in the unity of the family that she raised with so many difficulties and sacrifices. Her life was like a Portuguese saying: "There is no rose without a thorn, no joy without annoyances".
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