My grandmother used to love swimming.
As far as I know, she even won some medals in local tournaments.
“There was no thing as a female only race” she told me, “there weren’t enough women competing for that, so we faced men instead”.
Even so, there were two other girls in her team, and she was never underestimated.
Her team was her second family, the family she did choose. Her actual brothers and sisters where never as understanding with her as her team was, she was the youngest and classified as the troublemaker of the family, although she admits she simply was a bit “odd” for the times.
“They never wanted me to do any sport, they told me that wasn’t girly enough. They looked so surprised when the coach told them I was good. My father was a bit of a jerk, hehe.”
But dreams always come to an end, all journeys do.
Her country was messed up, the economy was a disaster, crimes started to get common, and became darker. Murder became an everyday thing in the news. Starvation and lack of meds started killing people too.
After a while, people started running away from it. Her parents too, wanted to leave. That meant she had to say goodbye to her beloved family. She thought they were going to be mad, but after all, they were caring and understanding. They were happy for her.
“You are going to have a good life” one of the boys told her.
“Oh, Alexander would have been your grandfather if I had stayed” she laughed. The tall, dark-eyed boy was just a year older than her.
“They threw me a small party in the pool, we girls brought our best swimming suits, you would have loved them, so colorful and weird. We took a bunch of pictures that day, the whole team”
“I gave Alexander a kiss good bye, but that was the last time I saw him. The last time I saw any of them, really.
Even so, I’m sure they had a good life.”
