I felt the weight of expectation bearing down on my shoulders, sniffed the sweet smell of daffodils blossoming around me, and stared straight ahead at the open ditch where an innocent woman would soon lay to rest. We arrived in the early morning before the others at the cemetery, a vast grassy wasteland where hoary tombstones were etched in the markings of histories long past. Veterans sleep beside their spouses. Children rested beneath the damp dirt, with stories told or cut short. The bright orange sun peeked through the Clearwater oak trees scattered across the cemetery and the silent gust piqued the tiny hairs on my arm. Soon, a hearse would arrive carrying the body of a loved one I knew quite well. When my parents were off at work while I was on break, she let me rest in front of the television set, watching hours upon hours of Nickelodeon. She bought me lunch from the nearest bodega and cooked me an early dinner at times my parents could not. That curious 8-year-old wanted to be there to stop the hearse from coming any closer. But I could not stop it. A priest stood less than a mile away, waiting to give a final send-off.
I closed my eyes, shook my head and thought, as if this was a dream, "This can't be happening. No way. This is unreal."
But time stops for no one, not even the innocent. I stood beside a generation of men shaped by this mythical woman. Her history escapes me now a year later, apart from her trip from Puerto Rico to the United States sometime in the mid-20th century, her love and treatment of her eight children as she raised them in Brooklyn, my hometown, and her weekly contributions to my piggybank. An orchestra of cars, from sudans to SUVs, filed through the same winding cement trail we drove through. This woman, my grandmother, had a cult following that ranged from California beachfronts to New York porches.
Mother. Father. Aunt. Uncle. Cousin. Brother. Sister. Four sons. Four daughters. 16 grandchildren. 10 great-grandchildren. Many scattered throughout the assemblage of cars, one by one filing into a predetermined empty space, as if each person were destined to fill that void beside stone plaques. As the cars drew closer, I wondered whether I would rally the courage to do what my mother asked so sincerely: carry the family matriarch to her final resting place.
Of course, I wouldn't be alone in carrying this out. Three of her sons, her son-in-law, and one other grandson would face a similar fate. I had a band of brothers to rely on to support, so that if my knees faltered under the weight of emotion, the generation before me would hold me up, just as they had since my childhood.
It was an odd request at the time. As children, young and old, approached her casket to say goodbye, I sat, alone, in the back of the cluttered funeral space with an almost Gothic interior with cherry walls and rows of brown seats. I took the role of the cautious observer, reluctant to show too much emotion in case someone wanted me to recount the time I spent with her. I loathed speaking in public, for I couldn't adequately articulate the grief and guilt I felt inside in the sea of confusion. Often, I sit in the back of classrooms filled with inquisitive minds, observe and wait for the moment to chime into the banter. Thoughts that bounce from one person to the next, though distinct and interesting, confound me. What had been my family's form of release, the recantation of stories – while comforting and thoroughly entertaining – still prevents me from coalescing my own lasting images of grandma. Is it selfish of me to want to keep the deluge of emotions inside, even today?
Then, my mother came to me with a request. She placed her hand on my shoulder and asked, "Could you help out?" I nodded. I knew what she meant. There were no further words necessary, just a terse question with an inadequate answer. As people began to leave, I approached the casket for one last viewing of her. Her crisp gray hair parted back against the white cushioning. Her once stiff, rosy cheeks were now pale and flushed, her skin as pallid as her hair. Her wrinkled hands were placed one atop the other in gentle artlessness, as if to make it seem her final wish to the Father far above, before she left this planet was to make sure her children, and grandchildren, were protected.
The hearse came to a full stop. The time came. The trunk opened. I remembered the undertaker's instructions. His languid tone rang with a pinch of care, just enough to make us feel at ease. At the funeral home, after he closed the casket, he told us to hold it steady, to lift it from our knees, arms straight toward the ground, in unison. Now, I stood behind my cousin and across from my uncle with a slate of mahogany dividing us. I grabbed the bitter golden handle and, in harmony, lifted grandma's body onto a silver gurney and rolled her to her resting place beside her husband, my grandfather.
--Thanksgiving night was the last time I saw her glowing smile. I remember it like it were yesterday. I sat crammed between the beige wall and dinner table and watched my uncle roll her wheelchair closer to the sofa. With the flip of a lever, he fastened her in place. She grumbled for a moment. When she didn’t get what she wanted, she let you and everyone else know. Her raspy voice bellowed a perpetual groan until someone attended her. “Not there, ma?" my uncle asked. She shook her head, with visible discontent. She wanted to stay in the same place just like everyone else. She seemed animate, but aggressive. She just wanted to be treated like everyone else for once.
She often peeked over her shoulder and glanced over at me when I wasn’t looking. My mother often told me my grandmother, the rancorous woman now restrained to a wheelchair, often prayed for me, for my safety, for my success. She thought I was the golden child in the family, the one who would surpass expectations and fulfill my dreams. Every time I returned home for break, I visited her at her building in a towering housing project in Coney Island - the same place she took care of me as a child, the same place where my mom and her siblings were raised, the same place she had lived for much of her later years. Her apartment overlooked the basketball where her son ran an annual basketball camp and where I competed under her constant watch. I rang the doorbell and waited for the home attendant to open the door. When I entered the living room, she grinned, her hardened cheeks reddening, her glossy eyes still glimmering.
“Ohhhh! Hello, Eddie.”
One afternoon a few years back, she suffered from a stroke. She had had the stroke on a Friday, suffered without help for the weekend, and was found lying paralyzed in her apartment just in time. When the family found her, it was too late. She had lost ability to move the left side of her body. She was once quite the lively spirit. Behind her back – only now am I able to admit this – I firmly believed she was blessed with a strong connection with her faith. She spoke to me in Spanish I understood yet could not respond in kind, worried I would sadden her with my linguistic imperfection.
“Si, Grandma.”
I asked the typical questions. How are you today? Do you need anything from me? From mom? Before I could ask another question, she interjected with a rustle in her purse. She handed me $20, closed her eyes and placed her right hand on mine. There, under the bursting living room lights, she tipped her head back, as if staring past the ceiling and into the cloudless sky. Her cold hands on mine felt therapeutic, almost unreal. She blessed me in Spanish, her native tongue.
But the moments inside my uncle's house passed, often without notice. The family continued to watch TV, gossip in the kitchen, and listen to someone’s iPod on the stereo system. The mood changed from fervent relief to thoughtless antics. As the night passed, as cousins mixed drinks and aunts and uncles danced, my grandmother looked on with gleeful eyes, bobbing her head to the music, her gray hair shifting from side to side so subtly. For the first time in some time, in her final moments in my eyes, she appeared euphoric in an almost haunting way. Only now can I see that.
Death lurks behind a satin curtain, watching over us until we take our last breath. We never know when that may be. We never know where we may be, who we will be with, what we will be doing. The clock ticks down from the day we are born, but after a while, we forget about the looming shadow for the sake of living life. We acknowledge its invariable presence in the death of many, or the loss of a loved one. But in those final moments, when you stare deeply into your loved one’s eyes, and see the light shine through the dark pupils, you realize the prospect of life only begins with death. Life’s finality dissipates. Happiness overwhelms the psyche and captures each moment like a stop-motion animation. Every second clashes together to concoct a vision of life’s imperfection – and bitter flawlessness.
Her ride had arrived. As my uncle rolled her wheelchair toward the front door, I noticed something unprecedented. For the first time in the long time, she sang under her breath. She whispered the lyrics to one of the many salsa songs I misunderstood. I stopped her chair to say goodbye. She looked deeply into my eyes, her dark spectacles never fading. Her hand touched mine once more, as I kissed her cheek for one last time. I felt her coarse right hand and stared at the other. She grinned.
“I love you, Grandma.”