My Crazy Old School Puerto Rican Grandparents

Growing up as a Puerto Rican from the Bronx. It was fun, sad, and oh so hilarious! My grandparents are some serious characters. I am not talking about all my grandparents...ok well maybe they are all characters.

Lets start with Mama. She is my maternal grandmother. OMG do I love that woman! She has always been an interesting character. Growing up I was with her a lot. My mom was 16 so you know...She was the one always there while mom was at school and working. My fondest memory of her when I was a child. She used to feed me crackers with butter, cheese whiz, or something we called piqua...but we now know its potted meat...yuck!!! But OH so good! Another classic Mama memory is her taking me and my cousin Larisa to FDR pool. She gets lost and cannot find her way. So she is determined to find it and pulls over. She hits a cone...gets out of the car to pick up the cone...then proceeds to stop a guy on the highway to ask for directions...yep...stopped a car on the highway for directions...that's her. Now my grandmother is more known for her dementia, notebooks, emeraude perfume, and absolute dramatics.

Then we have Papa, Mama's husband and moms dad. This man! The only childhood memories I have of him was him protecting me if I was unhappy with any of men in my life. Like he was a very serious and scary man if you didn't actually know how much of a sweet man he is. He loves playing the guitar, is the cook of the family...and in his old age has become absolutely hilarious! OMG he says exactly whats on his mind. For example, when I lost weight, I looked sick. I started gaining it back and there was one day that I looked like a woman...than i went back to being too fat! Then if I'm not putting making on that day he tells me I need to wear makeup because that's why I am not married. Now in my cancer I was warned that I should NOT have sex. Like seriously Papa...can we not talk about this?????

I went to church all the time with my grandmother, was in the daughters of Mary, rebelled, I had a normal life. We moved a lot, never had a lot of money but we survived. It was absolutely amazing. We played outside, my curfew was when the trafic lights would come on. I had a pretty normal childhood filled with heartbreak hardships, fun, laughter, lol I can get into specifics at a later date.