G., You were so angry. I thought you were a crazy person. Basically, our old-fashioned courtship had consisted of letters. I wanted to and did get out of our apartment. I did not know where to go. Five days in Germany, only having audited a German I course which I skipped most nights. I went to the cemetary to visit and talk to your mother, Pilar, whom I never knew, but I knew that she was there at our wedding, crazy as it might seem. After I bought the most perfect shoes to match my dress, I looked at the label and it said, Pilar, from Spain.
"Pilar,I wish I had known you."
Before we continue, let us go back.
Pilar came from an educated family in Spain. She fell in love with, Karl, from Germany of the German army, "Legion Condor,", helping Spain. during Franco's rein at the same time of "La Guerra Civil," in Spain. I do not know what happened second or first. Her brother Manolo was an intellectual against Franco and imprisoned by him, about to be executed. In the very south of Spain, Pilar found a man who said he would free Manolo if she slept with him. So , she did. And , that is how Manolo and his wife Elisa escaped to the United States and why Franco is responsible for our marriage.That was the only good thing that I know of that you did, Franco.
First, second, Second, first.
Well Pilar,
You were in the south of Spain, a loyal sister, a noble one, a good Catholic girl and you were pregnant from a love affair you had with a German soldier who abandoned you. You could not go to your family. So you went directly to Hitler.If I were to say," Good one," to my never met, but adored mother-in-law, it would be an understatement. He made sure that Karl would marry you and claim my now husband as his. That is why your son's birthday is really in April, but on paper, July. We celebrate both.
I guess you did one good thing too, Hitler.
So you moved to Germany with a baby boy born in Granada, Spain. Your husband did not love you, he did not even like children, never mind babies. You were always so afraid of his rages about diapers. So one night, as nervous as you were and not knowing what to do with a diaper you put the diaper in your husband's army boot, and then forgot about it.Oh, how I would have loved seeing him step into that boot.
So, Pilar, that night I went to visit you. You were my only friend and we talked for a few hours in the cemetary.When it started to become dark, I wanted to leave only to find that Germans lock up their cemetaries at night with  gates composed of thin steel bars, not the wooden type fences that at least have a few steps for one to climb up.At the top of all of those thin steel bars there are these round things topped off with a blunt triangle.
Pilar, I really loved talking with you, but I did not want to sleep next to your grave.
First, I tried more than several times to shimmy up those steel bars. Then, I was afraid that by going over I would end up impaling myself, so I shimmied back down. Up and down, and up and down I went.
In the meantime, your son had been out looking everywhere for me, except the cemetary. We did not have cell phones.
I finally made it over one steel bar,  with that round thing topped with a menacing triangle. I decided to go home, so I did.
And oh......