From my grandmother I would have wished to inherit her eyes. Although they were not the best at fulfilling the task of seeing, they did help her to bewitch all those who looked at them, starting with my grandfather, who drowned in those two clear green seas and from which only death could save him.

From my grandmother I would have liked to inherit her height, which allowed her to see the world from above with much more clarity than us short people, and probably helped her to understand it better.

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From my grandmother I would have wished to inherit her elegance, which was from her skin and not from her clothes; I have never met anyone else who even in a hospital gown looked better than anyone else in her best dress.

From my grandmother I would have wished to inherit her pink cheeks without the need to blush that kept her young until she was 90 years old. From my grandmother I would have loved to inherit her tenderness and her soft hands that healed souls and bodies effortlessly and without realizing it.

From my grandmother I would have wished to inherit her unhealthy optimism, which never allowed her to see problems or bad intentions and which always made her think that her life had only happiness, despite the fact that for many that same life could have been a tragedy. I would have wanted to inherit everything from my grandmother.

I was given black eyes that tell me that they look deep and that they do not bewitch but frighten. I had to be the short one in the family and look at the world from below. Elegance is a goal that I achieve only with a large dose of planning, but tousled hair comes natural and irremediable to me. My cheeks are big and white and blushing is a requirement to go beyond the door of my house.

Tenderness is reserved for dogs and my hands are rough because I work in the kitchen. Optimism has been fluctuating and elusive. That is why, when I need it, I think of her.

From my grandmother I inherited only one thing: from my grandmother I inherited the ability to write without thinking and without correcting, from my grandmother I inherited the sincere style and without pretensions of anything, from my grandmother I inherited the ease of transmitting what I feel without the purpose of doing it.

From my grandmother I inherited her essence, which, if I think about it, is better than her green eyes, her queenly stature, her noble elegance, her eternal youth, her tenderness, her soft hands and her optimism. From my grandmother I inherited it all.

“And your simple name that sounds like a bell will remember grandmother when she ceases to be, And when you write verses, because you have the power; it is good for you to think: I inherited it from her”.