‘Todas las cosas’ have their season
El día había comenzado un poco strange: The day started out sunny, y luego se hizo windy and then it started to rain y finalmente it began to snow. Grama Cuca looked out the window and she remarked: “Only aquí en Nuevo México podemos hacer experience all four seasons todas in one day.”
“It may seem así,”
replied Grampo Caralampio, “pero what happens to some people en un día will happen to others en otro día cuando
they are least expecting it. In Spanish we say: ‘días de unos; vísperas de otros’.”
“Days for some; days before for others,” Canutito translated. “¿Qué quiere decir eso??”
Grampo Caralampio thought por un momento and then he started to tell him a story: “Una vez there was a real nice family. En la familia había un papá, una mamá y un hijo. Along with them, en la misma casa, their grandpa lived con ellos. Todos los Sundays la familia
would sit down to a nice lunch en el dining room. En el comedor
there was a nice carpet on the floor. Siempre tenían un lonche bien bueno served on fine china plates and crystal glasses. Usaban cloth napkins que ponían right on their laps para limpiarse la boca from time to time. They would enjoy one another’s company; laughing and talking todos juntos.
The only problem en ese tiempo
was that, as the dad and mom and son were enjoying their lunch en el dining room, el grandpa was put en la cocina, all alone en la mesa,
eating off a wooden plate. Tenía un vaso de plastic y un napkin de papel. En el suelo, there was no fancy carpet; solo había un linoleum viejo porque el grandpa tended to drop food on the floor. He sat alone sin nadie coming to talk con él.
One day, mientras que estaban comiendo their fancy lunch, el hijo asked his dad an interesting question. He asked: ‘Papá, ¿por qué es que grandpa sits alone in the kitchen eating from un plato de palo?’
The boy’s dad hesitated un poquito before he answered him. ‘M’hijo,’ he said, ‘you know that we love grandpa very much pero ya está muy viejito y su cuerpo ya no trabaja tan bien. He can’t eat con un tenedor without dropping
su comida en el suelo. Whenever we serve him
en platos de fine china, they tend to slip away
por sus dedos and he drops them on the floor también and they shatter
en muchos pedacitos. Por eso es que I carved un plato from a piece of wood, así whenever he drops it, no se quebra.’
The boy kept eating slowly pero no dijo nada porque he was busy thinking en su grampo over en la cocina eating by himself. Le tenía lástima; feeling very sorry for him.
On the following week, el papá was looking por su hijo pero he couldn’t find him en ninguna parte. Finally lo halló in the garage working en un pedazo de tabla.
He looked at his son y le preguntó: ‘M’hijo, what are you carving on that board?”
‘Oh papá,’ the boy answered, ‘I got to thinking que algún día you are going to get old too. I started carving un plato de palo for you to use cuando se llegue el tiempo for you to use it.’
Entonces his dad realized que a todo se le llega su tiempo; everything has a season. A veces many of us tend to live out our lives como si vamos a estar young and healthy
para siempre pero todos tenemos un tiempo when we won’t be able to do todas la cosas that we could do before we got old.”
Canutito sat there pensando, wondering cuando sería su season
de él …