Abuelito Who

“Abuelito Who” presents associations filtered through the lens of a child’s mind. The speaker shifts back and forth between memories and the present day, between personal items and other objects. The unadorned diction creates a childlike tone: the use of brevity, incomplete sentences, repetition, and simple phrases uncluttered by modifying clauses reinforces a sense of the speaker’s naïveté and youth. The 23-line poem is one long, run-on sentence with no punctuation aside from the single question mark at the very end. Each line builds upon the character of Abuelito.

Abuelito doesn’t particularly care about money. He prefers to make wishes with his spare change. The idea that he “throws coins like rain” (Line 1) demonstrates that he treats money as if it is something that falls from the sky. Instead, he is concerned with love. It is the first and last feature that comes to mind when the speaker thinks of him, described in the second line as well as the last two, “asking who loves him / who loves him who?” (Lines 22-23). He often asks who loves him, desiring to hear it reaffirmed as much as possible, which helps the reader better understand this man. Next, the speaker associates her grandfather with “dough and feathers” (Line 3). These items are soft, fluffy, joyful, and possibly allude to a slight body weight. The speaker then lists a few associated objects, “a watch and glass of water / whose hair is made of fur” (Lines 4-5). The speaker provides small glimpses, like puzzle pieces, of the many parts of this dearly beloved man. Because she is just a small child, she can hardly grasp her grandfather as a whole picture but instead remembers him and understands him through the personal items he wears or the objects he typically uses. The seemingly random, disjointed descriptions actually combine to paint a very nuanced and dynamic picture of Abuelito. While the poem’s highly impressionistic, “coded” quality initially obscures an immediate narrative, the reader can infer that the story is there and that its memory is rich with personal meaning and detail.

However, Abuelito is not always available to the speaker, who may be too little to understand why. It is unclear whether Abuelito is actually “too sad to come downstairs today” (Line 6) or if it is his ailing health described later in the poem.

Although the reader knows only fragments of the story, something is changing with Abuelito. The word “today” (Line 6) infers there was a time when he was not “too sad” (Line 6) to come downstairs. Although the speaker is a young child, she notices and tries to make sense of this change. Thus, in the immediately following line, the speaker thinks about his kindness toward her. The mention of Spanish and English demonstrates a personal and communal understanding between them. They are both of Mexican heritage; they have a shared sense of culture and identity. With childlike reasoning, the speaker attempts to comfort herself by thinking of her grandfather at his kindest and most loving, the times he “tells me in Spanish you are my diamond / who tells me in English you are my sky” (Lines 7-8).

The speaker makes a few comparisons between her grandfather and stuffed animals. She describes her grandfather’s hair as being “made of fur” (Line 5), and his “little eyes are string” (Line 9). In many ways, as a child, the speaker cannot fully grasp her grandfather’s humanity, seeing him as this eternally loving stuffed teddy bear that will give her cuddles whenever she needs them. This is why when he “can’t come out to play” (Line 10), it comes as a big disappointment. The speaker is becoming very aware that her grandfather is not a stuffed animal. For reasons she cannot understand, he “sleeps in his little room all night and day” (Line 11). The next line reflects her confusion as she recalls his laughter: “who used to laugh like the letter k” (Line 12); the statement is past tense. Her grandfather no longer laughs like that, or perhaps at all. At the midpoint of the poem, the speaker finally addresses what is wrong with him. Assuming the noun and relative pronoun from the first line, Line 11 states, “is sick.” The speaker’s relationship with her grandfather now begins to change.

The following two lines feature imagery of a door, “is a doorknob tied to a sour stick / is tired shut the door” (Lines 14-15). As a small child, the speaker would probably have been barred from her grandfather’s bedroom, the location of all his medical supplies. The speaker may have often found herself staring at closed doors and closing doors behind her. The speaker also seems to not be privy to important details surrounding her grandfather’s health because shortly after she is told that he is simply tired, he then “doesn’t live here anymore” (Line 16). It is unclear whether this implies that her grandfather passed away. It is clear nonetheless that the speaker doesn’t understand where he is but still feels his presence: She believes him to be “hiding underneath the bed / who talks to me inside my head” (Lines 17-18). The statement that Abuelito is beneath the bed is ambiguous, but certainly expresses her childlike illogic; to a very young child, “underneath the bed” (Line 17) would likely seem the best explanation for where a missing person is. The line also suggests that, while the speaker can’t physically see her grandfather, she believes he is still there. Abuelito’s presence persists in Line 18 as the speaker internalizes his voice—evidence of the closeness of their relationship. Additionally, these two lines suggest an overactive imagination in a child who misses her grandfather very much. If her grandfather died, however, there is the possibility that she is witnessing his ghost or spirit—but the poem lingers on this notion only briefly, as the speaker’s attention moves quickly elsewhere.

The speaker names a few more associated objects in the next line, “blankets and spoons and big brown shoes” (Line 19). However, these items lack a positive connotation and represent his sickness. She lists the blankets that kept him warm when he slept “in his little room all night and day” (Line 11), the spoons that fed him his medicine, the shoes now empty. Her grandfather was such a constant in her life, however, and the sound of his snoring is something she remembers clearly—and the memory leads into the suggestion of wind before a storm, as the next line introduces rain. Now, instead of tossing coins like rain, the rain on the roof reminds her of the coins he used to toss, “is the rain on the roof that falls like coins” (Line 21). And she remembers him at the end of the poem the same way she remembered him initially, asking who loves him, consumed with the idea of love.