Acceptance: August 8, 2014, 4:00 a.m.
There is a loud banging on the metal door of my house that jolts both my mother and I awake. My mom goes to answer the door. It’s her cousin standing there telling her that my dad is on the phone and wants to speak with her. We don’t have a telephone in my house in Mexico as we only spend a month there every year. We see no point in it. Instead we have my dad call us at his parents' house which is right next to ours.
But not today because there is no one there. My grandmother has been for a year and half, my grandfather is in a hospital in Mexico City and all my aunts are with him. The only family members that are close to my grandparents' house are two of my uncles who both live in the same street as us, but one of them is on his way to Mexico City and the other one is too busy poisoning his liver with alcohol to even hear a phone let alone decipher whether it’s his imagination or not. So my father calls my mom’s cousin instead. My mom walks to her cousin’s house which is roughly two blocks away. When she comes back I ask her what my dad said and she tells me. “Your grandfather got worse, your dad is just waiting for us to go back home so he can fly out here.”
Today is supposed to be the day I take a bus from Oaxaca to Mexico City so that I can fly back to California tomorrow. I’m supposed to leave to the to the bus stop which is in a different town 40 minutes away at 7:00. I still have to go say goodbye to my mom’s side of the family, so I jump in the shower get dressed and by 5:00 a.m. we head out the door to my maternal grandparents' house. When we get there at 5:20, everyone has a sullen face.
Instantly I know something isn’t right. They tell us that my dad called again, and at that exact moment the phone rings. My mom goes in to answer it. She comes out moments later and tells me to go in there pick up the phone and talk to my dad while she arranged some things and cancelled our flight. An hour and 20 minutes passed between my dad’s first call and the one in which he told me that my grandpa was dead. I hear the church bell ring. It’s an old tradition in my hometown: when someone dies, the church bell is rung six times. I hear the speaker used to make announcements to the town say “Descansa en paz Constantino Rojas Loyola” -- Rest In Peace Constantino Rojas Loyola. Hearing those words is like having the wind kicked out of me.
My grandfather was a hardworking, kind and honest man. He was a fighter. He survived becoming an orphan at eight, the death of his 15-year-old daughter 30 years ago, a stroke, the death of another daughter and the death of his wife. He was one of the strongest men I knew. The day of his funeral, I saw just how kind he was not only to his family but to everyone. I saw a mother and her two sons who were about 13 and 16 break down in tears in front of his casket because of how much he had helped them. When they didn’t have money for food, my grandfather would give them supplies from his grocery store. He gave the oldest child little jobs to do around his house so he could earn a little money. I saw a woman who now lived two hours away attend his funeral. When someone asked her why she drove so far, I heard her say, “He was a good man, he helped me when no one else would. Being here is the least I could do.” When news first broke that he had died, someone walked up to me and with tears in her eyes said “Se nos fue” -- we lost him.
My grandfather’s death gave me a chance to do something I wasn’t able to do with my aunt’s or my grandmother’s deaths. It gave me the chance to say goodbye. It gave me a chance to be there and grieve alongside my family. It allowed me to see that I wasn’t the only one grieving.
After we buried him, we all stayed in the graveyard with the band during his funeral. We sat there and talked to my aunt and my grandparents as if they were still there. This allowed me to finally let go. This allowed me to do the one thing that was eating away at me: to talk to them one last time. I had one last conversation with them and I told them that I loved them. I told them that I would miss them everyday of my life and that I would never forget them but that I had to let go of the pain, sadness and anger because I knew that wasn't what they wanted for me. I told them that I would visit them every year, and that I hoped they were happy. Lastly, I promised them that I would do my best to be happy and that I hoped to see them again someday.
Nothing prepares us for what’s going to happen in our lives. We never know how much something will hurt us until we experience it. I didn’t think I would ever be able to overcome the pain that I felt but I did. There is a hole in the world where they used to be. There are empty houses, things I’ll always miss, that will never go away but neither will they -- at least not completely. When I lost them I didn’t know how to live without grandparents or without an aunt, but I now realize that I don’t have to. They will always be a part of me. That will never change, I see that now. I will forever hold onto their memories, to the sound of their voices, to their mannerisms. The time I was able to spend with them will never be taken from me.
I learned that it isn’t what happens to us that defines us, it’s what we do in regards to it. Whistler from Buffy the Vampire Slayer once said, “Bottom line is, even if you see them coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So, what are we, helpless? Puppets? Nah. The big moments are gonna come, you can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.”
