Walita by Elisabeth Wolfe

I have very few memories of Walita from my young childhood. My family lived in Seattle, and she was far away in California. I know that when I was a baby, she took care of me and my cousin Manolo, who was 18 months older than I. I have very vague memories of going on a walk to get an Icee…I can see the red and blue logo and feel the excitement of going to get the treat. But it is very hazy and dreamlike–I would have been 18 months old. She used to laugh about Manolo saying to me, “Wisa! NO!” and would imitate him, long after we were adults. 

My next memories of Walita are much later, when she began to visit us in Seattle by bus, and later,  in the Blue Bird of Happiness. I was so impressed that she had taken car repair classes, and I loved her fierce independence. I told myself that when I was old, I would be like her. 

I wasn’t really sure what to think of her, since I only saw her a couple of days every few years. My father and she had a legendary adversarial relationship–he called her a Bruja and said that her birthname wasn’t Wolfe, it was Lobo. She called him a white man and got all huffy when they did their (mostly) good natured sparring. 

After I moved back to California, I saw her more often, especially after my boys started appearing. I have a beautiful picture of her holding my eldest, Nikitas, in a rocking chair, holding him on her chest, an amazing photograph. 

When I showed it to her, she huffed, “that looks like an old Indian woman!” I said, “You ARE an old Indian woman, and she gave me that indignant look, with her lower lip pushed out, and then it dissolved into her funny little giggle. 

Every time she came to visit, she couldn’t just sit still like other grandmothers…she would take on any task she believed needed to be fixed. She had a particular hatred of overgrown shrubbery, it seemed–at one house I lived at, we had a wall with ivy growing down it, that regularly needed to be trimmed. I hadn’t gotten to it in a while with a new baby in the house, so she tackled it–and I was horrified when she chopped it all back, exposing the ugly cement wall. At my mom and my Montessori school, she helped with all sorts of things, which we appreciated immensely. Both she and my mom were great role models for me, and the kids, hauling stuff around and doing all kinds of work defying “little old lady” stereotypes. 

One day she decided to clip back the bougainvillea that was growing over a fence at the school, and cut it back so much that the neighbors came by and reported that the bush had fallen over because she’d cut it back so much. Walita vs the vines. 

I wish I’d pried more information from her, about our family–at some point someone said we were Mexican, and she said, “We are INDIAN. Not Mexican!” 

She was an early adopter of all kinds of trends that are now mainstream–herbal remedies, “health food”, alternative therapies. Before the internet, one had to be very committed to research to discover these things! At some point, she gave me a set of Louise Hay cassette tapes–a couple of decades before Hay House went mainstream. I’ve been told I get my fierceness from my Walita–that may be true, but I think my greatest gift from her is my insatiable researching. She was born too early to really learn the internet, but she would have been delighted at the ease of getting information, as I am. 

I loved Walita’s sense of humor, and her willingness to even laugh at herself. When I was much younger, she would be very adamant about certain subjects–but by the time I was in my 30’s someone had taught her the phrase “IN MY OPINION” and she really did try hard to append her comments with it. 

I miss her delightful little laugh, her dignity and stubbornness (even though it could, of course, get pretty annoying). She always claimed to hate dogs but I caught her on more than one occasions talking to my dogs and once I found her petting Annie, my cattle dog mix–she jerked her hand away when I came in the room and put her “who me, I’m innocent” face on. 

I’m proud to be descended from such a strong, inquisitive woman. She was a fighter but she loved her grandchildren fiercely, and I feel fortunate to have had her in my life for over 55 years.