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I only knew my grandfather Juan (Alfonso, I did not get him even though he has investigated his history).
I have fond memories of him that I would never want to lose in my memory.
Unlike.
Under any circumstances, there is always something that reminds me of it.
Perhaps that invisible thread, from him, unites me to my grandchildren.
I compared him to Miguel Hernández because my grandfather also took care of goats when he was little and he liked to read a lot.
Motherless;
As a child he had to find life in a difficult situation in the early 20th century.
I have many memories in my retina, of my grandfather Juan: Sitting in the pits of the Tower, in the Cinema of the Plaza de Toros, in a corner of the area where the Che brothers, used the camera, projecting those Roman movies, gunmen or adventurers ...
Also when I looked at the sky at night and explained the stars or the moon.
Sometimes, I helped him bring sawdust from the wood factories in front of the Station.
Sawdust was used for animals, as a "bed" or when it rained on the doorstep.
On one occasion - being a child - I was passing a house, in the street of El Beso, which they were renovating and among the rubble, prepared for removal by those who dedicated themselves to that in cars (Lázaro, el "Merguizo "or the duo of" El Ceña and "El Pintáo"). Hard (very hard) job for those highwaymen who will someday have to be rescued from memory like that of the Aguadores.
Among those rubble, on El Beso street, Cánovas del Castillo corner, there were a lot of books that caught my attention and I asked the masons for permission to take some of them if they were going to be thrown.
They agreed because they were pasture from those rubbish dumps in the suburbs of the town.
When my grandfather Juan saw me arrive with them he asked me for explanations in case I had taken them from some place and that was very bad.
I explained what had happened to me and he told me that they were very good books and to keep them.
Since then, my grandfather was reading those books and his passion for reading infected me.
I always observed him in everything.
But especially in his hands, when he filled the glass with wine, he took care of the vine in the house, read the books (without glasses) or shared the milk and coffee with bread soups in the morning, whose aroma I remember as something unique.
His pulse trembled and he would sometimes tell him: "Grandpa, your pulse trembles ...".
To which he always replied, "You will reach my age ...".
Highlighted, greenish veins in his tanned hands stood out in his hands.
He was also interested in my hands and pointed to the stripes on my palm.
I don't remember what I was looking for or interpreting in them.
Maybe he was looking for the line of life.
Despite his pulse, he was very adept at peeling the spade figs, removing the pricks with a spit, or removing the specks from the eye with the small mother-of-pearl button.
Sometimes I would see myself with my hands clasped by the knee, with one leg on top of the other, in a classic posture that even he used it in the wedding photo with Eusebia.
But the most shocking thing about those hands were the signs of the veins.
A few days ago, in a meeting, while listening and dreaming (it happens to me many times), I looked at mine and observed that the (greenish) veins were also noticeable, in a special way, like those of my grandfather.
In a second, a storm of memories piled up in my mind through my hands, remembering my grandfather Juan's and comparing them with mine.
I also remembered this passage by Eduardo Galeano:
“In the unequal fight against fear, in that fight that each one fights every day, what would become of us without the memory of dignity?
The world is suffering an alarming loss of dignity.
The unworthy, who are the ones in the world, say that the outraged are prehistoric, nostalgic, romantic, deniers of reality.
But aren't women and men who have fought and fight to change reality, who have believed and believe that reality (the sad and current reality) does not demand obedience, real?
We have come to tell you that it was worth it.
Reality invites us to change it and forces us to accept it.
She opens spaces of freedom and does not necessarily lock us in the cages of doom.
Reality is a challenge, we are not condemned to choose between the same and the same.
We have empty hands, but the hands are ours. â€
My grandfather, Juan - like almost everyone else - left empty-handed.
But with the dignity of a good man running through his veins after a difficult life in difficult times.
But the hands (although empty) were his.
Maybe those hands made me think when I saw that my hands were looking like my grandfather's.
Juan José Cánovas
Source: @jjcanovas
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