Jonalyn's Watercolor Blog

I’ve lost two grandparents this year, my tall Polish grandmother and my slight Spanish-French grandfather. The stories we continue to tell about our family, especially after their death, reveal precisely how deeply they changed us.

I Go Around

Around this time of year, I bake one dozen gluten free peanut-butter cookies. Then I fly to California to deliver them to my Papì who would have been 96 this November.

Careful about his appearance, scrupulously shaved, brushed, dressed immaculately, he wore his hair in this slick wave rising up from his forehead, reminiscent of Marlon Brando. Once I told him, “Papì, your hair is beautiful, but your bangs are silly.” He told and retold this story almost every time we were together. “Bangs!” He would retort at the end, “I don’t have bangs.”

My grandfather held his favorite moments of my childhood and retold me the tales. The time my Aunt Cheespees would visit heavily rouged and shakily lipsticked.  She would halt the conversation upon the children’s entrance and command me and my brother, Jacob, “Come here and give me a hug and a KISS.” Once my brother, who couldn’t have been more than four, showed rare pluck and simply turned and slunk the other direction saying,

“I go around.”

Papì saw and empathized. From then on, anytime someone asked for something distasteful or improper, Papì would quote Jacob, “I go around.” That line became our code to describe the situations and people best left avoided.

He was my gentle protector. I only recall seeing Papì run when we were in danger or someone reminded him of the time. I remember Papì roughly grabbing my arm when I was five and about to leap into the La Mirada Regional Park pond. I wanted to “Go swim with the ducks.” He would apologize even years later for having to grab me so hard to prevent my dunking.

I vividly remember him one time when he suddenly appeared when I was climbing a backyard tree with a faulty branch. I remember time slowing as I fell 10 feet, but instead of hitting the ground I landed in his arms. I still don’t know how he timed that catch. He must have been watching me. It must have been one of the rare times he ran.

He used to encourage me to call him an “old ass” in Spanish when we were joking together, much to my grandmother’s (Mama Grace’s) disapproval. “Viejo mulo,” I would whisper so she wouldn’t hear. He loved to joke, telling the old stories, gently revealing the hypocrisies around us with the tenderness of a saint.

Bean Counters

As I child, we used to sort dry beans together. We would dump the bag and comb through the dry pieces, slowly landing on any broken pieces,

looking for small clods dirt or pebbles. Mama Grace would cook the chosen ones with her on-the-fly secret ingredients. She showed me how to cook (A Tale of Two Grandmas), but my grandfather showed me how to see.

“Look at this aluminum,” he would call me over to inspect the fine crafted, thin metal that wrapped his favorite chocolate bar. A precision machinist, born Jorje Latapie, pronounce “Hor’-he Lǎ-ta-pē’ accept on that last syllable or you’ll miss the Spanish intonation. Oh, I wish you could hear him say his name, such dignity and beauty in his accent. He perfected his English by watching black-and-white American movies while a new immigrant from Mexico City. His Spanish mother was an oil and watercolor painter. Back in Mexico City, my grandpa worked as an organ maker in his early years, following his French-born entrepreneur father and later starting his own company for precision-made parts for companies like NASA. When I told him my son, Finn, was wood carving, he shared that he used to make money carving wooden pieces for his father’s organ business. When some friends suggested Jorge hop the border to southern California, he joined them and was up a ladder picking fruit when suddenly…

“I heard them yelling to me, “L’Immigre, L’Immigre.’” When his friends ran for cover, Jorge did as well. “I wasn’t doing that again.” He told me shaking his head.

He married my grandmother Engracia de la Cruz  after boldly following her home one day.

“Her big smile” he said, captured his heart. My grandmother saw him stalking her and told her friend,

“Don’t look now, but there is a fine man following us.”

They married and immigrated to Whittier where they had my mother and became naturalized citizens.

Schubert and Cookies

The last time I saw Papì was February 2024, when I visited him in the hospital for several days. He recognized me, delighted to see me and was awaiting release (the hospital had again claimed he had COVID). I told him I had brought peanut butter cookies for him.

When the hospital finally released him, Papì came home. I got to see him on my final morning before my flight back to New Hampshire. I had rented a piano to play Schubert’s “Serenade”, his favorite piece that had history with us. When I was six-years-old, Papì asked his friend, Perucha, to play “Serenade” for me. Afterwards he said, “Joni, would you like to learn to play like that?”

“Yes, but I don’t know how.” I said.

“Perucha, can you teach her?” And that was the beginning of my piano lessons

So, Papì listened while holding his plastic baggie of peanut butter cookies. He savored the cookies one by one, clutching at them with hands like eagle’s talons when my grandmother tried to get her hands on one. Mama Grace has a bit of a sweet tooth. He tucked in and listened to Schubert in that final morning we spent together.

Years ago when Dale and I chose to move away from the family in southern California he and my grandma were the lone voices of support. He told me back in 2010,

I don’t know if you believe me or not but I didn’t stop loving you even when you moved away. Because when you have someone in your heart you don’t stop loving them even when they move. You always love them. And I will love you as long as I can keep my heart beating.

The stories Papì taught me are filled with such dignity for my life. The last words Papi shared with me were on the phone were just a few weeks before he died, “God bless you, m’ija (my daughter)” And I already knew the rest, “He will, if you let him.”

In the new heavens and new earth, when Jesus returns to reign as the rightful King of his people, in this time when we all move around with our new, restored bodies, in this new place where the Prince will have wiped out every tear, I will bake Papì a big batch of peanut butter cookies. And I will play Schubert. And we will continue keeping the true stories alive.