Mama Nanin was the mother of grandma Fica.
It was an afternoon in Santo Domingo, in my grandma's apartment. In the wall, there was a picture of mama Nanin as she held a flower bucket. The orange and yellow flowers made a sharp contrast with her pale figure. She wore a white shirt and a black skirt, and she was smiling shyly. The phone rang, then my mom picked up the phone and answered.
"Que como puede ser"
Tears started to come out of her face. She was crying. I asked her why, and she told me Mama Nanin had died. But I didn't understand death; I didn't know what it meant to be dead. I did felt my mom's pain.
Tears, running through her face, like a child who loses the world.
It was a long way to Parmarejo, and my little body felt like crumpled loose-leaf.
As we arrived, our little red truck had to cross a crystalline river. Some people were bathing, and they stared at us. Then all of a sudden our vehicle was swimming in the depths of the river. The green trees stared at us from the blue sky. I imagined us sinking like the rocks which were barely visible.
Then the red truck had to climb a long mountain. After, a great Hussle we arrived. The house was pink and made out of wood. And the kitchen was outside the home, sustained by thick sticks of pale wood with dark green spots like the little sliver of countries. On top of them, there were silver, wavy, zinc pieces, which reflected the sun as the kitchen exhaled a grey smoke that faded into the sky.
Mama Nanin was in the center of the room in a black coffin with a peaceful smile on her face. I asked my mom what was happening to her, and she said she was dead. She said that she wasn't going to weak up. Then I started crying because I comprehended that she would be sleeping for a long time. Only then I had realized that bringing her grapes as a present was futile.
It was cold and gloomy. Campesinos crying surrounded Nanin's coffin.
"Ay Dios mio porque te la llevate"
Then all of a sudden the ground shook violently as if the earth had a mouth of her own and she roared. Germania, my grand aunt, said her spirit was alive and that she was with us.
Her daughters were in a small dark room, all hugging each other and crying. Crying. Crying. Crying. There was some gloom of light coming through a window. Mama Fica was alone on a chair. She was sobbing, with her head facing down. I couldn't bare see her in such pain. Then I told her that she would come back, that God will resuscitate her when the new paradise comes. A new world where there would be no more suffering. Mama Fica smiled and said
"si mi Amor yo se."
The night sleeked through our bodies but not through our souls. She came by like an intruder, announcing it was time for our bodies to rest but no one closed their eyes. Silence perpetrated the room. For the first time in a lifetime, we didn't differentiate night from day. As a child, Naïve, there I was waiting for the time to take its place. But we were a space secluded from time. It was my first time encountering eternity.
Then my grandma said I had to sleep, that I was a kid. My mother and I slept in a small room. As the cold air breached through the bed sheets, it wrapped my little body. I gave up and closed my eyes.
The roosters sang again just like in Las Matas de Santa Cruz. The cold breeze returned stronger and made me have goosebumps. Outside of the pink house, there was a dark zinc shower. The sun filtered in to expose a livid inside with a water bucket. The smell of the leaves and metal vanished as my mom splashed my face with freezing water.
