abuelo.

I remember you on hot summer days,
walking up the cracked cement that lead to your door,
the sound of Vin Scully's voice announcing the game.

I remember you and the way you smelled of Hawaiian bread and Irish Spring.

I remember you and how I thought that Mexico had become a part of you...
the way your skin looked the color of sun baked clay.

I remember you and how your hands were like paper,
crinkled and cracked but filled with experience.

I remember you and how your eyes could see things I didn't want them to see.
How you could stare a tunnel straight through me and into the things that built up dust in the back of my mind.

I remember you and how you were a man of sacrifice.

I am certain that you beheld the beauty of the Spanish speaking sun and the land worked by hand.
The freshness of corn not from a produce stand but right off the vine the way the vaqueros did.

But you gave up your comfort to cross into a pretentious unknown that was filled with the promise of freedom from 9 to 5,
fearful and very much alone,
sending back the fruits of your labor to support your family back home.
All the while, saving what you could to bring them here.

There must have been so many night that you has asked yourself why you had come.
Relying not on the laughter of your children and the smell of tamales and beans but solely on the idea that you were under la misma luna.

I remember you and how if it wasn't for your sacrifice, I wouldn't be here to tell the tale.