Journal December 2025 Release - Flipbook - Page 56
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financial, professional, sexual, and emotional. I felt like nothing at all. One day, I
told Adriana about my grandfather, who had died when I was 20.
He knew who I was; he admired me; he cared about me. He was sensitive and
intelligent, but he too had troubles in love. He married a woman – my
grandmother – who was an unwell, very unstable, taunting, angry woman. I still
remember her humiliating him, treating him as if he were nothing. But, to me, he
was everything.
He had to sleep with his head at the foot of the bed because she didn’t like the
smell of his head. At the Sunday family lunch table, he got the last piece of
chicken. And I saw it, I noticed it, I knew it. I was only a child, but I knew it all.
Adriana asked me if we could invite my grandfather to a conversation. She asked
if I could pretend to be my grandfather for a few moments. I would think like him,
I would remember how he used to see me, and I would use the words he would
say. She would be the interviewer. She would speak with him, and I would reply.
The conversation began. She addressed me as Mr. Álvaro, and I eased into it little
by little. The first question – I no longer remember which – seemed deep,
profound, difficult. I tried to answer, but I was still me. Adriana noticed, stepped
back a few paces, and began talking to him about situations she already knew.
That allowed me to slowly get my role in the play.
We spoke about the blue Vemaguet he loved and with which he sometimes took
me and my brothers to school. She asked him about his granddaughter—what she
thought of going to school in an old, noisy, smoke-belching car. And he replied
that she liked it, that she didn’t care about such things.
We talked about the flowers, the birthdays, the porcelain exhibitions, the
teachings he passed on to me, and, moment by moment, I was more him than
me. I knew what he would say, how he felt, what he thought about life, how he
treasured our grandfather-granddaughter story, and how much he knew about
me.
Then Adriana let the questions get deeper, and, eventually, these questions
touched my moment of pain. She asked my grandfather about relationships and
what he could tell me about what I was going through. He knew he didn’t have
Narractivating Conversations with the Internalised-Other: A Therapy with a Little Bit of Fairy Dust.
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, December 2025 Release, p. 45-65.
www.journalnft.com
