My grandma's first love

The year was 1943, and my grandma's tia and tio owned an important business in the little town of Tepeji del Rio, Hidalgo, Mexico: They surveyed land and helped people build or sell it.

At 15 -- with plenty of privilege but not much formal education -- my grandma's role was escorting customers back and forth to Mexico City, where they would get their planning documents notarized and processed. Since many customers were illiterate or at least ignorant of the real estate process, she and her older sister Raquel were the guides through the labyrinth that was Mexico City City Hall.

And it was there, one day, that she met Javier Larasaval. Three years her senior, he was tall and lithe, with olive skin, dark hair and dark eyes. It's still unclear what exactly he did at city hall, because once he met my grandma, whatever job he had took the back burner.

When she came to town, it was bliss. They ate at sidewalk cafes. They strolled the Alameda. They went to the cine -- the obsolete kind where you drop in and stay for as many movies as you'd like. He never spent much time at work.

Three years into their relationship, my grandma returned to city hall from the suburbs of Tepeji one day. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the way she ushered her customers through the maze of hallways to the heavy desks.

Except for that boy in the starched white shirt running towards her, grim-faced.

"Sabes que paso con Javier?" he asked. "Do you know what happened to Javier?

She wrinkled her nose at his question. And she shook her head with a scowl as the grim-faced boy told the story.

Javier was driving his car downtown, just driving. And one of those big delivery trucks came lumbering through the street. There were no skidmarks, because he never saw Javier's car rolling through the crowded street and into his path. The metal curled around the truck; the Modelo Cerveza bottles in the back rattled and spilled on the impact, and a little yellow trickle streamed from one corner.

The blood and the beer ran together. He didn't stand a chance.

"Me estas burlando!" my grandma told the white-starch boy. "Me estas burlando."

But he wasn't joking. He unfolded the fresh bulletin from his pocket where Javier's name, date of birth, date of death were printed.

"No. No. No!" she cried out. It echoed in City Hall.

My grandma said today that Javier was her first great love, before my grandpa. She would have married him in a heartbeat.

He was 21.