home is not a house, it can be a person or a tree with branches

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A home is not a house, it can be a person or a tree with branches.

─Get down from that tree or you might fall! -my grandmother would shout while I remained mounted on the highest branch eating guava and watching all the people pass by as if they were a line of ants. Abuela would sit sewing in her rocking chair and in an oversight of her, I would climb the tree as if it was a primitive need to look at the world from another perspective .
─Maíta, you must cut down that tree because a tragedy may occur. That little girl can fall from there! -said my uncles and aunts, trying to convince my grandmother.

─I told her that I'm going to cut it down if she keeps riding it! -my grandmother said loud enough for me to hear, but she and I both knew she wouldn't cut it off. My aunt and uncle also sensed that she wouldn't and that bothered them, but they couldn't do anything because the only one who could cut the tree was Grandma.

─ Get down! -Grandma would say again, now with more character. Then I would go down and make endearments to grandma, who always smelled of stew, bay-rum and coconut oil. I would hug her and tuck her between my arms, like chicks do under the chicken's wings and say:

─You're never going to cut down the tree, are you, grandma? -Grandma would smile and make a negative gesture that filled me with joy.

That guava tree was there long before we arrived at that house. My father, who came from a small town, came to the city to work and to be able to give his family a better life. And so he did: he bought a house and brought my mother, with whom he formed a family; then he brought his mother, my grandmother, and then his brothers, my uncles and aunts. Although the house was my father's, my grandmother was the center of it:
─What will be made for lunch today, Mrs. Eugenia? -my mother would ask at lunchtime. Then grandmother would bring out the meat, the condiments and as if she was a kitchen wizard, together with my mother, she would mix, spread, spread and create the most delicious dishes. My grandmother's fingers always smelled of garlic, cinnamon, freshly cut cilantro and her apron bore the traces left by stews and fried foods as they splashed.

On important holidays it was a sacred ritual to be around my grandmother, talking to her, listening to her. At Christmas, for example, all the children who lived apart would come early in the morning, ready to spend those days together with us, gathered in the house. Uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, brothers and grandmother made up my big paternal family. My house, with five rooms, was filled with people even in the corners, because we all wanted to be with her: my grandmother.

In fact, on my grandmother's last Christmas, she was living with an aunt, whom she helped with the children. That Christmas it was us: my dad, my mom, my sisters and me who had to move to another house to be with her. I remember that just like the previous times, from her rocking chair, Grandma was the queen.

One July 4th, in the middle of the night, the house phone rang. My grandmother was sick, so we all woke up and ran to answer it. My dad was the one who picked up the receiver and all the rest of us waited in anticipation. We watched as Dad lost color in his face and put a hand to his head. Then he exclaimed a wail, howled like a wounded animal and fell to his knees: grandma was dead and from that moment on we started to walk in a place with no ground.
After that a gap opened up, an abyss, each of us became an island. As if we were enemies, the whole family began to confront each other: they took Grandma's bed, her clothes, her jewelry. Everything. Between brothers and sisters they fought to see who would prevail. They also had the tutelary tree felled, as proof that no one reigned anymore.

Although we continued living in the old house, we never again felt those familiar smells that we breathed when grandmother was there: the smell of guava, the smell of coconut oil, chopped coriander and especially, that smell of bay rum that was used to anoint wounded knees.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Until next time, friends.