Searching for more names
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Chapter VII: About the trenches and the multiplying tables
Ometepe Lake, Rivas, Nicaragua
My grandparents’ passage through this world was not in vain. I never understood how Grandfather found the time, to carry out all the things he did in life. To begin with, his eighteen children whom he brought into the world with my grandmother Manuela’s dedicated collaboration. It could be said that due to his passion for order and equilibrium, his children turned out to be, exactly, nine sons and nine daughters. They were born alternatively, first a boy and then a girl, beginning with my father, the eldest of the eighteen siblings, who was baptized in León’s cathedral, with the name of Dario José. If someone should ask Grandfather whether he considered that he had borne sufficient children, he would always answer smiling,
“As long as I can find a name for them, there will always be room for one more. And let me tell you, as I know for a fact, that with all those Saints my wife prays to every night, I’m utterly sure we shall never run out of names, for one child more.” Needless to say, Grandmother Manuela was a very devoted woman. She would attend six o’clock morning mass, every single day of the year; and on Sundays, she would visit again at noon with all the family.
In her bedroom, Grandmother had an altar with a huge Crucified Christ, probably a bit over six feet tall. It overhung the altar in the far corner of the bedroom, opposite the foot of the bed. Next to it, a French door opened to a balcony that overlooked the quiet street. The altar always had white wax candles and little oil lamps that were lit day and night. There was one always lit for each of the Virgins and one for each Saint she usually prayed to, and they numbered more than forty in all.
In the land of volcanoes’ Chapters Purchase the book