Arise and eat, for the time of healing might have come

I am so nervous about tomorrow; I've spent the whole weekend thinking about it, trying to kill time, fixing the website, singing with the choir, visiting my parents, sometimes present, sometimes not.

Yesterday I wasn't able to sleep and I got to bed today at 6 am. I made my bed, took a shower and worked a bit until I went visiting my grandparents. It mesmerizes me every time; we don't have much to talk about besides ordinary things. Today my grandmother in a green broken sweater was telling me about how her nurse gifted her a money plant, totally excited. I've had this omen of 2026 being the year this punishment would be over for a long time now, and so far I've only experienced massive improvements when it comes to my health. This can be the end of this yuga; I will go and live with my fiancée, there is a real possibility of getting a college work, things are going my way for once, slowly, stubbornnessly, but going nonetheless. 

Their house is simple, full of pictures of me, my parents, my sister and her dead ones with a couple automatic ergonomic sofas so they can sit and watch Canal Sur with the occasional bullfighting I grew up watching on weekends with them. So much time has passed, and their love has been unconditional since I was born.

My parents were working all day, so since I was one year old I went under my granny's caring arms. She took me everywhere in our small village, I knew the elders, I went to see her putting costumes and laughing with her group of friends who called one another "conejas" (spanish euphemism for pussy, as they were all women), she was always smiling, cracking and teaching me dirty jokes, full of energy and love. Evergreen love that even now in my adulthood receives me with tenderness and hugs and kisses every time I go visit, even when I phone call her in the lightning of the one minute conversations we have as she doesn't want to bother. 

Now time has passed, granny is almost eighty and she's got old for being a blazing bolt going everywhere, but the soul remains, the jokes remain, the look of happiness every time  I tell her something positive that happens. She's always been nonchalant and mischievous, and she has been supportive to the bone with everything I wanted to do in life. Dementia is catching up to her, but for now, I am enjoying her and carefully gathering memories, even simple ones, for when the time of departure comes. I can still remember the first time I got a haircut at a barbershop when I was like 5 years old and  I kept talking about the encyclopaedia (for kids) I got for Christmas while she was telling the barber to cut it real short for the haircut to last. I ended up almost shaved, I remember crying soundly, but I now appreciate the memory.

As for my grandfather, I cannot remember much of him as a kid. I learned more about him as I grew older and I got the chance to ask him the big question. We have talked about his period in the military, how he liked to shoot weaponry, the friends he made, the pictures he got from there, how did he built his house, how did he met my granny, and the type of love I want to preserve with my fiancée, the kind that says "it feels like yesterday" when asked after 60 years of marriage, even if they argue non stop due to their personalities. The illness and cancer are getting to him, so I enjoy the moments when there is just the two of us and we get to talk about life, or just talk about everything, or just to stay silent, even if I check my phone from time to time.

So, after that I went home only to meet with a friend short after for a walk and then I went to mass. I hated it since today it was a big day in my town and there were plenty of elders and cayetanos; the overcrowdedness of the church was making me anxious, I wanted to flee away as it wasn't even my priest friend the one that would office the mass but the other pastor whom I don't exactly like.

Still, I stayed. I got distracted, I picked up the phone mid sermon, but I managed to look at the "dolorosa" (sorrowful virgin) sculpture my family is linked to; my father carried her for almost 20 years and I played and sung for her during almost 15. We are spiritually connected to her, and I prayed for her intercession tomorrow at the medical exam.

I went out of mass after a sermon of trusting God and this and other wonders will you do if you believe, and finally reached what I was longing for; the holy soul's shrine that is casually really close to my house. There is a tradition of people going there (they are linked to the carmelite tradition) and give offerings as a deal towards miracles or things to happen. This has been done during a long time, at least since the civil war and prior to that.

So I went there and touched the teal with the Virgin at mount Carmel and started praying; it wasn't magical, no night time, cars going through, but still, I was able to say what I wanted to say, that tomorrow could be a great day for me, that years of yearning, of screaming in pain, of fighting my own body, could be finally over, that the nightmare that haunted me yet taught me so much could be vanished for good. And I wanted them, not only to pray for me, but to accompany me, as they are the souls of my ancestors, of the people that lived here since the phoenicians, the remains of the people who bleed, fought and worked towards my existence. They must be present.

I felt shivers and I went home.

Tomorrow is my chance to take the future by storm, to regain what was taken from me, to finally get my blessing by force.

It is finally our time time to make it rain fire. Let's dance.