You want to talk about challenges? Go interview your abuela. She’ll tell you how she used to sleep on a dirt floor in Puerto Rico. But, oh, of course, you’ll have to call her first. Which you never do. And which you’ll regret the day that she dies.” “That right there,” I said. “Grandma on a dirt floor.” I started to write. Mom slapped the pen out of my hand. “Do you know your abuela? She’d die if you thought of her as some poor, defenseless thing. She’s a warrior. She never begged nobody for nothing. Write that.”
