Manuela and 50 grandchildren ~

This weekend, I created a list of all documented, legal grandchildren to Manuela and Bernardo Ruiz and the list dropped off my computer screen until it totaled an even 50. Amazing. Then, I started a GreatGrandchildren list to total 105 children from those 50 grandchildren. I was awestruck, so I began a third list to show her GreatGreatGrandchildren and so far I have 20 but the list will surely grow once I receive responses from my many cousins. Manuela's Petals.

In my child's memory of grandma (abuelita) I remember how amazed I was that she knew all of us by name. As a young child, she watched me and two other cousins, while our mother's worked, so we had special times in our memory bucket. Memories......
*Grandma standing in the bathroom brushing her long hair and wrapping it round and round her head before sticking black bobby pins into the edges to hold it in place.
*Grandma lighting newspaper she'd twisted into a tiny log to dip into the hole on the surface of the big black stove she cooked our food on and kept us warm in the big kitchen.
*Grandma dousing sugar, cinnamon and milk into bowls of white rice.
*Grandma holding the flowers to our nose to smell, then handing it to us with a word, "aqui" (here!)
*Grandma pulling us onto her lap and surrounding us with warm arms and kissing the tops of our heads.
*Grandma mimicking children's songs. Two little blackbirds sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. She heard the song once and repeated, Two little blackbirds sitting in a tree, da-da-da-da-da-da-da..... She couldn't spell so she had no idea what it was but the music and kadence was there and her laughter generated everyone to squeal with their own laughter after hearing her....

But then again, my Abuelita always made me smile to be around her..... and I smiled until she died when she was almost 100 years old. Ofcourse, she thought she was already 100 but seeing her birth documents and knowing she couldn't read them, we now know she was born June 25, 1901, not June 24, 1900 as she always thought and that was her birthday celebration over the years. I also smile at that because it was such a sweet and sad thing to know Abuelita was younger than she imagined...