AIDA’S STORY

Prologue: October 2017

Dear Aidita,

Last night you asked about your grandmother and I began to tell you. I felt at ease talking about her with you, her namesake, but once home, memories of Aida flooded my head like the waters of Puerto Rico’s immortal river, Rio Grande de Loiza, rushing down the mountain into the ocean. This morning, after little sleep, the cascade of memories continued to fall and I knew I must tell her story. This decision came as a relief, a tight blister lanced. But immediately I wavered. Can I tell her story true? Do I have the courage to relive the hurt, the guilt, the betrayal? Then I thought of you, seventeen years old and demanding to know, and the waters stilled. I’ll simply write her story as if I’m telling it to you and it will be all right.
A full recounting of what happened all those many years ago when Aida and I were young and in love, has never been told. You’ve been asking me about her since you were nine or ten, but last night your anger at President Trump’s response to Hurricane Maria fired your questions with new heat. You reminded me of Aida demanding that her father recount his witnessing of the Ponce Massacre.
Your mom has never pressed me to tell her mother’s story, not the full story. As a child, Julia couldn’t hear enough about what her mami said and did, what she looked like, what she wore, but she never asked about Aida’s death. At first, she didn’t ask because she feared she would cry and I would cry also. Later, she didn’t ask because the hurt ran too deep. When you were born and grew older, she didn’t want me to tell you the full story either. She thought not knowing would keep you safe, less tempted to make an icon of your grandmother and want to follow in her footsteps. But now you’re a young woman and have claimed your right to know. And you do have a right to know. You are blood of Aida’s blood.
Today, images of Aida and our brief time together fuel my memory. But how brightly will these images burn in five years or five months? At age seventy-two, my memory weakens daily. If I am to write her story, I must write it now. What you do with it afterwards is up to you. Store it in a closet. Share it with your mom, if she can bear to read it. Share it with your dad and two brothers. Share it with the world. It’s up to you. Only read it and do not forget.
The heart of Aida’s story is the story of Puerto Rico, her beloved island of mountains and streams, sugarcane and coffee plants, screams and tears. When I think of your grandmother, I wish I could picture her gazing down upon a free and prosperous Borinquen. Sadly, no such island exists. Aida loved Puerto Rico and longed for its independence more than she longed for anything else in the world; more than she longed for your mother and me. That’s the hard part, the part I will never fully understand. The time for telling and for tears has come. I will write her story the way it was, not the way I wish it had been.
Sometimes when I look at you I see Aida and my heart jumps. You have her shiny black hair, her large, alert brown eyes. You hold yourself the way she did; tall and straight, a young woman unaware of her own beauty. When I talk, you listen intently, as she did, your head tilted to one side. You even write poetry, as she did, verses simple and true.
Why God created you in Aida’s image, I don’t know. It’s cruel. Why can’t He just let me rest? It’s as if He’s testing me, taunting me, commanding me to remember and to record before I forget. And so I will. But not for God, or in tribute to some lost cause, but for her and you and all the daughters and sons of Borinquen. I want you to know Aida as I knew her. I want her to live.