There have been people I’ve wanted to meet because they’ve changed the way I see the world. But if I could have one perfect day with anyone, living or dead, I would choose someone I never had the chance to know: my biological grandfather.
Although we haven’t met, we do have a photo of him, and next to it is one of my mother, who is the spitting image of him. He’s very handsome, and I can see why my grandmother fell for him, even though she refused to go back to Texas with him.
On to our perfect day. The morning after I arrive in Monterrey, Mexico, my grandfather, Javier, meets me for breakfast at our hotel. He arrived a few days earlier from San Antonio to visit his sisters and their families. Before coming down from my hotel room, with its view of Cerro de la Silla and the distant mountains, he reminds me to wear comfortable clothes and shoes as we’ll be doing some sightseeing before a small gathering at Rosa de Luna, Aunt Rosa’s hacienda.
Over coffee and machacado con huevo, the AC is chilly in the hotel restaurant, and we end up trying to warm ourselves with more hot coffee before heading out. His golden brown eyes twinkle as he reminds me we’ll be begging for AC later in the afternoon sun and heat of late summer in Monterrey. I see my mother’s smile in his kind face, and like her, laughter comes easy.
First stop of our day is the Sephardic Jewish Foundation. Javier tells me that we have history waiting for discovery, as I too had uncovered from a highly rated DNA testing company. There is a lecture that morning about the Sephardic diaspora, and we learn how they came to New Spain. Having to convert to Catholicism, they had to practice their faith hidden in plain sight. Even today, some of the Nuevo León residents still have practices whose origins they don’t even know after a few generations.
My grandfather leans over, his whiskers tickling my ear, whispering, “I remember my own grandmother lighting candles every Friday night before dinner, quietly praying. Always quietly, as if no one should hear her words but God.”
Javier looks misty-eyed, one hand over his heart, smiling softly. After the lecture, he takes my hand and reminds me that we have deep roots and that we all have histories that deserve our compassion and recognition of all the loves and lives that crossed oceans to bring us to that moment.
We walk into the early afternoon sun and sit alfresco and sip agua fresca. Grandfather Javier tells me about our Basque, French and Spanish lines, and even Sardinian, where it is said giants lived!
“But now we head to Rosa de Luna for a celebration of familia, Catholic, Sephardic, and everyone in between. Come, granddaughter. I hope you can dance in those white New Balance!”
EN 111 Prompt 6 (Fall Semester 2026): “Write about someone who you would love to meet. What would your perfect day with this person be like?”
Field Notes 
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