When I was about 3 years old, I remember going to visit my paternal grandparents who lived on a farm. The farm was divided into several fields which were not next to each others. The name of that kind of noncontiguous property was Hijuelas, meaning something like isolated children, I guess.

Near the house was a great vineyard with golden grapes that looked like opals against the sun.

I remember such a hot summer that my cousins and I spent much time on the corridor in front of the house. That floor was cooler and had a great roof over it, projecting a nice shade.

They say that the soil and the higher temperatures are the reason why they produce such good wines in that valley.

Inside the house, some rooms were also cool, but the best cold room was the one next to the huge dinning room where my grandmother had the cheese.

By tea time, my grandmother would gather her grandchildren around a brasero (a raised brazier with coals) and put some bread to cook under the coals. The bread “al rescoldo” (baked on embers) would come out smelling great and very toasted outside. Then my grandmother would take a knife and clean away the darker places, and open the bread into two halves and spread them with some rich butter, which had also come from the cheese room. Some times we would add honey or avocado or jam, to the already glorious taste of that warm bread and butter. A big café au lait would accompany this delicious “onces” (tea meal). Many times my parents, aunts and uncles would join us and tell us stories of their childhood or other stories. They would tell us about the house in the south of Chile, “Los Robles” (The Oaks) where they used to live before my grandfather was told to move north for his health. I had noticed that, under his work pants and over his long johns, he wore a red cord to help him with what he called “rheumatism” but was really arthritis. My grandmother’s big, long hands also showed knotted knuckles and twisted fingers.

In that big house in the south they had big corridors that surrounded the house and were enclosed by beautiful wood and windows. In the back of the house, there was a big patio where they used to “see” the big blue dog, crossing from one side of the patio to the other. The dog was looking for his master, who would cross later in the night, looking as blue as his dog, to the back of the patio and continue walking, still followed by the dog, right up into the black starry sky.

My father remembered that as being a frequent happening during all his childhood in that house.

Stories like this one were common, not only in my family but, in the families of some of my classmates in school. One of my classmates whose grandfather had been a president of the country use to tell us that after coming back from school, she always had to great her grandfather, sitting in his armed chair in front of the fire place. He had committed suicide in 1891.

In the house of one of our neighbors, it was common to hear somebody crying for about 30 minutes on a certain date. The cry came from a room that had been locked since a great aunt had died there years and years ago. Her fiancé had died at sea on the same date as the cry.

I do remember people telling these stories as part of their daily life. Nothing was unusual about having an aunt able to read the tea leaves or telling you about your love life reading just plain play cards.

One friend of my mother called her on the phone and perceived that my mother had painted her bedroom blue. She was the one that once told my mother that I was going to dedicate my life to God, but my mother never told me because she did not want me to be a nun. However, she told me after I recognized Jesus as my Lord and Savior and became a missionary who taught indigenous people how to use computers to translate the Bible into their own languages.

Later in life, I came to understand that we are born feeling at ease sensing and acknowledging the supernatural world. Of course, since our only point of reference is our family, and the society we grew up in, we only perceive what to that culture is more unusual than everyday life (even when considered not surprising). The more “city life” they live, the more these stories seem unusual or maybe false. The more “intellectual” they become, the more ashamed they are of recognizing that the supernatural world is there waiting for them to acknowledge it. We need to listen to God’s love and learn to avoid the master of this world. Satan triumphs every time we recognize as true only what we can hear and touch.