A rosary with black beads
Chapter 13. About how cigars and how they explode
La Condesa, CDMX, Mexico
“Jairito, I’m simply asking that when you’re up there flying those deadly missions of yours that you take good care of yourself, and you come home for lunch, once you’re done.”
All this happened a long time ago, when I was eleven years and three days old. I didn’t join my grandfather in the plane, when he was flying, anymore. The days when I sat on my seat, on that wooden crate between his legs, had long gone by. In its stead, he carried dynamite sticks in the crate, tied into five and ten stick bundles.
But still, my aviator leather helmet and my goggles accompanied him in his flight through the skies. Both had their own place on the left side of the dashboard. They were the remnants of the past, the casual witnesses of an interlude in my life, in those turbulent times of war, when we still flew together; carefree and without thought of the freedom we enjoyed.
When we chatted about inconsequential affairs, without ever realizing, just how blessed our days were. Those were the days of a simple, and perhaps naive, view of our everyday lives that we, unfortunately, took for granted.
On the dashboard, aside of the compass, he also invariably carried a small rosary with black beads; it was a gift from Grandmother, who had it blessed by the Bishop of Managua years before.
In the land of volcanoes’ Chapters Purchase the book