The worst years of my childhood were when my parents--going through a horrid divorce-- placed me with my grandma until the heat came down, and it was safe to return home. 2 and a half years!

I could die or was half dead during all that time. With a strictly Catholic Italian background, she was as old school as it gets. And I suffered the consequences. 

My dad must've instructed her to keep an eye on me since I was naturally rebellious and a “troublemaker.” He's the one with all the problems in the world, stressed out to the max, in debt, and facing a devastating divorce from the sweetest woman you'd ever know, but I was the troublemaker. Really, Dad??

I was only 9, but street smart for my age and always with my friends, playing soccer anywhere we could. The beaches in Mar del Plata were my favorite.

It was a sight to behold right by the rough Southern Atlantic Ocean. The huge waves crashing on the shore would make the Hawaiian surfers die of envy.

A gorgeous landscape, no doubt, and the faithful witness of --in contrast with what was to come--the best years of my youth. 

No sunscreen for us. We were beach boys, fully born and bred. We only stopped playing for two reasons: to fight and to eat. But we were all brothers at heart. Our families weren't related, but they might as well have been. 

And we looked out for each other. There was trust that no blood connection could beat. We were wild but straightforward; after all, we needed Food, friendship, and a soccer ball.

Families were always the “enemy” in our view. Of course, they weren't, but in our young eyes, they couldn't do anything right. 

Then, there were unofficial competitions. Football (soccer) fanatics like us from different city neighbors compete for the top prize: an enormous bakery-made cake with a candy-based player on top wearing a tiny jersey made by someone's girlfriend belonging to the winning team. Or the flag of the neighborhood club.

Days of glory, one may say. And it wouldn't be a lie.

When I was taken out of that world, it felt like a brutal change. I tried to run away so many times I lost count. But I couldn't get far. There were police all over Buenos Aires. Those were the days of the juntas, military repression, and suspicion everywhere. 

Even civilians seemed alarmed by me being alone on some bus and always snitched me out to the authorities.

Back to Grandma, back to jail. 

Worse, the adults have this strange concept of kids. We are never entitled to the truth and are too young to understand. They're dumber than dumb for thinking that way. The way we kids saw it, they were the ones who were the dumbest. 

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Just the way of thinking alone was so stale, so compromised, so fake. 

They have mostly stayed the same, too. The adults have a wisdom-lacking complex. It's their way or else. They don't take the time to communicate with children or even adolescents properly. 

They know everything better. Until they don't. They should self-examine themselves more often before they scold us for no reason or to feel like they have to show who's in charge.

We are not stupid. We know who's in charge. And it's not them.

So, back to my ” lousy” granny. I wish they would've sent me to the “good” one, my maternal one. But that was not to be.

And I suffered. She didn't mean it, but she hardly knew me, and she didn't understand the paradise of a life I was coming from to be suddenly locked up in a cement jungle and having to deal with her crazy ways. 

All her life, she followed a strange tradition called “Spiritism.” 

I had no idea what that meant, and neither did I care. That was the last thing on my mind.

I just wanted to return to my life, friends, beach, and cake (if we won). 

What the hell is “Spiritism”?

Well, she showed me.

Every week, she'd take me to these unbelievable scenes where people got together, like in a bad Hitchcock movie, speaking in tongues.

Or in languages they didn't previously know. 

I didn't have a video camera, but I have my memories. I won't lie; it was sometimes scary, mainly because I didn't know what was happening. Who are these people? Are they possessed? What's wrong with them?

Luna, my grandma, would invite some of them (her friends) over for tea, biscuits, or worse, dinner!

They all had crazy names I'd never heard in Italian or any other language. But I didn't know much those days, I have to admit. 

Still, what in the world are these people? They were friendly and normal when they came over. They spoke Spanish, Italian, and Sicilian, and to me, they acted like anybody else.

Until they went into a trance, you could hear a pin drop at the meeting hall. Then, they were unrecognizable. 

And then, I was scared.

Shitless.

What was also incredible was the sound they made. Some of the women would sound like children, while some of the men would sound like girls.

When we talked about it, and I asked a million questions, Rosa would explain that they're channeling spirits from (hopefully) their deceased loved ones.

I asked her all kinds of questions about the living AND the dead.

So, it was only a short time until I became utterly interested in what was happening before me with people I was beginning to know.

They weren't actors or performers. Some were grandmas, too, with other things to do than playing games and tricks on people.

These guys were for real. Once they became “mediums,” they communicated with entities from the other side. 

And everything about them changed.

It was even freakier when they got up and started walking around in a trance. 

Science today, with all the magnificent tech advances at their disposal, is effectively researching these phenomena, but in those days, all I had were my eyes for a witness. 

So, after a while, playing soccer was a distant memory. Thinking in retrospect, it could have been worse. 

At least, my crazy old grandma, Luna, loved and cared for me the best she knew how and made those 28 or so months with her an incredible experience that served me to understand human nature a tiny bit more.

Being into holistic living also introduced me early to plants, herbs, and flowers. And vegetarianism.

That crazy old woman wasn't that crazy after all. She couldn't change the world, but at least she opened my mind and taught me there's more to life than playing soccer on a beach.

But if you asked me then, I’d have told you that was blasphemy.