Seeing My Grandma for the First Time

   Yesterday, my grandmother came from Cuba and we were all excited to go to the airport to see her. I left Cuba when I was 9 years old and since then I haven't seen her. So it's been 9 years since I spent time with her. My cousin and I would do pranks to her, like scare her to death at night after watching a scary movie, which would make her shoot up like a rocket. We would go to the grocery store and hide her bags, and even hide behind the aisles so she thought she lost us. We were impish creatures with her, even though she laughed afterwards. Those were great times we had once in a while and going to the airport to see her was really exciting. But, like the pranks, it was also scary because people tend to deteriorate through time. The image I left in Cuba was not at all the image I saw.

   She had dark hair, instead of her usual blonde. She had gotten chubbier, but simultaneously her sunken cheeks gave off the appearance of not eating right - it's Cuba, so that's what one usually expects. Her skin was darker than usual, with dark circles and bags around her eyes. In the her left cheek, she had a bite and it was swollen to the point were it looked serious. This struck me as sad because we remembered her as a lively person with her invigorating laughter rocking the whole house. But, although her image changed, I was more than exstatic to welcome her with a hug, a thousand flowers, and a million balloons.

She left my cousin and my aunt behind, but they are still planning on coming. This is even more exciting because all of my family will soon be here. We could hang out together and share our laughs with grandma, even though we will never stop pranking her. It's just nice to know that despite years of separation, through times, we can all be together again.

I still can't wait to take her shopping so that she becomes amazed at all of the fancy gadgets, clothes and the piles of food that she never had back home. And I am thankful that we can finally talk to her and see her again.