Mi Yeyita

Jennifer Lett
English 273-WI
12th of October, 2009
RD2-Portrait

At 5'7, Aida Izcaray de Villegas was the tallest woman in our family. She was named after an internationally acclaimed play written at the end of the 19th century. Aida's mother became enamored of a tragic love story set in Egypt and showcased in Cairo, 1871, Aida, just before giving birth to my great grandmother. I didn't always know her name. Like a lot of children who think their grandmother's name is "gran gran" or "grandma", I thought her name was "yeyita". In Spain, great grandparents are known as Yeya or Yeyo, and like all spanish terms of endearment, I added the diminutive -ita and thus, Yeyita. More precisely, my Yeyita.

I became aware shortly after my Yeyita's death that having at all had a relationship with one's great grandmother was a rarity and an honor. [Thesis] One of my favorite qualities about her was the quality of her voice; a refined tone. Always, it pacified my anxieties. As a child, I'll admit - I was inconsolable. I cried - a lot. I cried until I felt her loving and warm embrace. She would sing beautiful melodies while I wrapped her fertile arms around me, even during the last year of her life and even at the peak of her illness, her integrity was still with her. And when she died, I felt I had lost the sense of who I was. The time I had with the person who provided me the answers to so many of my inquisitive little mind's questions was ephemeral. She was gone.

She was an elegant woman, the great granddaughter of a Duchess. She never argued -- never yelled; She spoke Spanish, English, and French but she preferred to communicate with her eyes. What I remember the most about her is how much she loved my mother. "Patica, Donde estas mi amor?" she would call for my mother and I sensed how much they loved each other in the familiarity of their tones. She would worry about my mother and grandmother's relationship. She had apprehension towards her son-in-law. Her instincts were keen; my grandmother would later divorce her husband. He beat her. Once, he beat her for chatting with the mail man. Fortunately, my Yeyita always felt her duty as the Matriarch of the family was to assuage familial disputes. Always the voice of reason, Yeyita simply uttered her thoughts by virtue of those huge beautiful brown eyes seasoned with a hint of basque spice and subtlety. Everyone's bickering and quarreling would cease eventually.

Her parents were remarkably unique, they were not just Spanish, they were Basque or "Vasco". The Basque are a culturally distinct group of people in Northern Spain and France. They don't consider themselves Spanish or French, typically, they consider themselves as independent from the rest of Spain. Along with spanish, they speak a basque language with non-Indo-European origins and eat basque cuisine which is influenced by french cooking and is famous for its cider houses. Cider houses are large country restaurants with enormous barrels of cider. Her father was Basque but her mother was from Madrid. Aida was the daughter of Dona Fili Munoz de Izcaray and Don Fausto Izcaray. He was a mortgage lender by day and thespian by night. Fili, short for Felipa, happily participated in and encouraged his theatrical inventions. And soon after her parents were married, Eduardo, Moises, Armando, and finally my great grandmother Aida were born and followed in their theatrical footsteps.

Aida was a dancer. In 1928 - at only 8 years old - my great grandmother was a star performer in the Circo Teatro in Colombia. She was prodigiously skilled at the Charleston; a dance made famous in the 1920's by African-Americans living on an island near Charleston, South Carolina. "Baila Negra!," her brothers, Moises and Armando would call her to dance the Charleston with Eduardo. During their tour through Latin America, they danced alongside Alla D'Assia, a famous Russian Ballerina. Their parent's insistence on musical exposure for the family would lead her older brother, Eduardo to become a skilled pianist and famous composer.

This decade, during the "Roaring Twenties", was possibly the pinnacle of self-realization and happiness for her. I understood this first hand when in 1998, the last year we would share together, she asked my mother for one single thing -- an album, "The Roaring Twenties". Every so often, I put on her favorite song and imagine her singing in front of the mirror, complementing the lyrics with her graceful facial gestures and I am watching, "You're the cream in the my coffee, you're the lace in my shoe. You will always be my necessity, I'd be lost without you."

I can see her in my mind's eye. She is sitting at the edge of her day bed watching her novelas with her rosary dangling over her hands and long fingers. She was a devout Catholic. She prayed in the mornings before her breakfast, during lunch while she sipped on her favorite beverage Cafe con Leche, and she prayed at night, her face peaceful and gentle like the night breeze. The experience was almost as if she were in a meditative trance. She was like the stars outside of her bedroom window, at first glance they appeared to be standing still, alone in the darkness. But, the stars -- like my great grandmother are sources of guidance. They are the royal road to bliss.

I would like to think that she is still sitting there in prayer with one leg swaying back and forth crossed over the other. This tick and chocolates were her only vices. I'd like to think that she is still watching over us, protecting us. She made sure no one stayed angry, this is just who she was. My Yeyita had many opinions and I'm sure plenty of them were not always nice but, her loyalty was immeasurable and so she kept to herself the opinions she knew would hurt or injure. My mother jokes that if my Yeyita ever saw any one of her nieces, daughters, or granddaughters doing anything inappropriate, she would turn a blind eye and say, "You are perfect", "Don't listen to anyone who says otherwise!".

I have a black and white picture of her; I look at it almost every day. I framed it a year ago hoping to keep it intact for longer than it should be. I look at it and I see my sister, I see my mother, I see my grandmother, and I see myself. I see four generations when I look at her picture. My mother's eyes are her eyes. My sister's nose is her nose. My lips are her lips. My grandmother's love is her love. I met my Yeyita after life gave her diabetes, after her husband left her, and after every single last piece of jewelry was gone. I know that being her great grand-daughter is the closest I will ever come to an exceptional human being.