Tuesday, January 12, 2016

The Rituals of Death

So his body was there in the box.  We watched it lowered into the ground.  My aunt sobbed into the shoulder of my cousin's only real beloved of his lifetime.  A picture of him sat there, so we could see him smile.  It was hot in the sun and freezing in the shade.  My daughter hid her face in my neck and asked if we could just go see Barkely (my aunt's dog, who my daughter does not even like).

All I could think was, these are the rituals of death.  His body is there, in the casket, a simple, wooden box that sends him back into the earth from which he came.

She opened the bathroom door with a key, his body blocked the door, she noticed the purple color of his arm ("that's not good." She thought to herself.), she noticed the thin white cord around his neck.  She noticed his head back and the peaceful look on his face, the most peaceful look she's seen in a long time.  And all she could think was, "well, he's okay."

"He's not okay." Her fiancée told her.  "Call the police."

The police rush in, straight upstairs.  They come back down, more slowly.  "He's passed away.  There's nothing we can do."

Then the coroner comes.  He talks about limbs getting stiff.  About moving the body.  About objective stuff that doesn't relate to the boy he was, the man he became.  That's not Carlos.  That's a body that used to hold Carlos.

That's not Carlos.

These are the rituals of death.

"I don't want a funeral," she says.  Why?  Carlos would not have wanted a funeral.  Carlos wanted his spiders to be taken care of.  Carlos wanted his mother to have peace.  Carlos wanted the fuck out.

"I'm having a funeral," his father says.  "I'll be there," she says.

Because we all mourn in different ways.  We all have different ways of dealing.  He needed the ritual, the ceremony, the words, the prayers, the large gathering.

We gathered.  Those who loved him, loved him deeply, for his greatness and for his pain, for his innocence, even as a twenty eight year old man, and for his transgressions.  We loved him not in spite of his "flaws" but because of them.  Because you cannot be Carlos without the flaws, you cannot have the sweetness without the bitterness.  You cannot love so deeply if you do not also hurt so deeply.  His emotional depth knew no bounds, and in the end, that is what killed him.

There were many people who also gathered because it is what you are supposed to do, which is kind of funny, when you think about it.  Carlos rarely did what he was "supposed to do," and so if he visited us today, on this gathering day, if he laughed at all, it was at that.  Haha.  A good chuckle.  Silly humans.

But she knew.  "I'm here.  She thought.  I'm still here.  And I will recognize you in the clouds, in the surf and in the sand.  I will remember you when those desert lizards cross my path and every time I spare the spiders lurking in the corners of my room.  I will feel you patting me on the back.  I will hear you comforting me in my loss"

We are sad.  Those of us who loved him.  Those of us who see him in the ones who made it.  "Why couldn't he make it?  Why couldn't he find a way?" We ask ourselves, selfish in our need to have him here in our lives, even at a distance.

The answer is so simple that it is beyond us:  this was his way.

How simple and yet how complicated for those of us who fight to live.  My grandmother has battled two cancers and survived running herself into glass shelving in the pitch black, fighting to live, to breathe, to stay here longer.  "I love life," she says.

And her grandson smiled at death.

There we were, eating cookies and laughing and crying and sharing moments and memories.

The great love of his life, a young, beautiful, broken, but healing girl was there.  I watched my daughter reach out to her, "can I play with her?" Celaya asked.  She had never met this young woman of twenty eight.  She had only met my cousin once, in passing, at one of his darkest times.  She reached out, recognizing a kindred spirit.  Brianna brightened, "exploring" the area with my daughter for a few moments.

Tears hid behind my eyes all day, dew drops ready to fall as I thought, "these are the rituals of death."

We acknowledge that this is now part of our story.

This is part of my story now.  My cousin killed himself.  He took his own life in a way that is unique to all others of which I know.  And now I look at my daughter and I see my cousin.  I see depth, empathy, emotion, an angelic sweetness that is unearthly.  I see my daughter ask if she can hold your hand, if she can let the ants run up her arm, if she can gently cradle the ladybug or the roly poly bug.  I see my daughter's heart break for a crushed snail, for a smushed acorn in the street.  I see her frantically want to save the crushed Cheerios from the wheels of the shopping cart, and I think, "how do I love you enough to save you from this fate?"

And is that even my job?  Is it even possible?

I don't think so.  Not anymore.  Before my cousin killed himself, completed his journey here on this plane of existence I would have argued otherwise, but now, no.

If anyone loved, anyone accepted, anyone gave, more than Carlos' mother, in all the right ways, not too much, not a smother, just a support, not a squeeze, just a hug whenever he needed one, it was her.

All I can do is hold her hand when she asks, mourn the lost life of the snail with her, pick her frantic body up out of the cart so she can retrieve the fallen Cheerios.  I am here as her guide.

The pastor said today that we have no control over our lives, over who our parents are, the paths we follow.

I disagree.

I imagine Celaya chose me, her soul reached out to mine, she needed a mother who would "taste" her mud pies, who would give her space and freedom and at the same time open arms and a predictable routine.

And I know Carlos chose Deena, his energy called out to her energy, so strongly that despite her being unable to bear children he reached across another woman, a biological mother, a birth giver, from another country, to bring Deena to him, to witness his entry into the world, to live in a trailer with him in the dingiest corners of Mexico, to bring him back to her space, her haven, her sanctuary.  A mother who would feed his reptiles when he was away, who would send him care packages when he was out of town, who would listen to him philosophize for hours.

This was always his end.  This was the path he was on from the very beginning.  He began with her, and he needed to end with her.  And he never would have been able to complete his journey on his terms, in his way, with a smile on his face, but for the mother he chose.

These are the rituals of death.

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