Gypsy Jan - 10-31-2010 at 03:06 PM
(Reposted from mexconnect.com, author Karen Hursh Graber)
"My Aunt Elaine, who had left the States with a Mexican husband years before, made the decision to bring "the whole helpless bunch" down to Mexico
where, although no longer with her husband, she had a good position teaching English at the state university. Her widowed sister and "little niece"
would accompany Eula and Grandpa on the flight down and settle into a house in San Pedrito, the small town where my aunt lived and from which she made
the daily commute to the university. My mother, weepy and morose since my father had died, and used to listening to her older sister all her life
anyway, agreed.
I had been a little scared at first, but now, after a few years, I had my friends at school and Esperanza´s various children, grandchildren, nieces
and nephews in and out all the time. We lived in a house with a sunny patio and flowering plants in big clay pots and good smells always coming from
the kitchen. My mother, with Esperanza´s help, did the marketing and cooking and housework and took care of Grandpa and Eula; my Aunt Elaine went off
to the university every day and managed the finances and some nights went out dancing with "novios". My grandfather was thrilled to be out of "the
home" and surrounded by family in a house where he was treated like a king instead of a patient.
Eula seemed to have no idea that she was even in another country. Now she would never leave. A few days earlier she had developed respiratory problems
and my aunt had called in a bilingual doctor from the university, just in case anything that anyone said was actually registering, and he had written
out a prescription while Esperanza watched skeptically over his shoulder. Now it was nearly nine at night and Eula had died as she dozed and we and
several neighbors were drinking coffee and waiting for the coffin.
"Señora Cristina!" Esperanza called from Eula and Grandpa´s room. "What dress do you want me to put on the señora?"
"What did Esperanza say, Melissa?" my mother inquired, head down on the kitchen table, evidently too tired to follow Esperanza´s rapid Spanish. She
was surrounded by neighbors murmuring soothingly, while my aunt took a turn at passing the refreshments.
An hour before, the two of them had gone to the funerarios, rung the night bell and selected a coffin. Scarcely a half an hour later, neighbors had
begun to arrive. Now the funerarios people were in the living room, setting up the coffin with a large cross at its head and four silver
candleholders, one for each corner. One of the neighbors had arrived with long beeswax candles, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, ready to
be unwrapped, admired and lit.
There was nothing to discuss regarding "arrangements"; things were moving along on their own just exactly as they had for generations. Esperanza and
the neighbors had mobilized; the group of women at the kitchen table was discussing who should lead the first rosary while the men in the living room
were moving furniture in order to accommodate the coffin and the crowd that would stay up all night for the velorio. Esperanza´s husband, Don Beto,
had gone home to get folding chairs.
My mother looked faint, my Aunt Elaine rather perky and hostess-like with her tray of pan dulce. My grandfather, who had badly sprained his ankle only
a week before while getting a lesson in baile tropical out on the patio with Esperanza´s sister, and had been getting around with a cane, was now
sitting on the edge of Eula´s bed, his head and hands leaning heavily on the curved handle, sobbing pitifully.
"Mom, please," I implored. " She wants to know what to put on Eula. You know. What clothes."
"No, I don´t know. I have no idea what Eula would have wanted. She hasn´t spoken more than two syllables in the last three years."
"Well, I know. I know exactly which dress she´d want. She liked that navy blue silk one the best. She liked the way it felt when she touched it. I
knew that because of her eyes. I could tell when she was happy because her eyes would change. I could tell lots of things about her that people never
even noticed and I want to dress her."
I could understand the shocked expression on my mother´s face, because I had surprised even myself. I had said what I had before I even knew what was
coming out, but suddenly it had become very important to me.
"But Melissa, you´re not even twelve years old!" My mother didn´t seem to know what else to say. Clearly the idea of my wanting to dress a dead person
struck her as an aberration.
"Elaine!" she called. "Can you believe this child wants to dress Eula?"
"Well, as long as I don´t have to do it," came the reply. One of my aunt´s novios had arrived with the first bouquet of many that would fill the room
in the next several days and my aunt was getting more hostess-y by the minute.
At that moment, Esperanza entered the kitchen. My mother began to explain my request in her slow, careful Spanish, but if she was looking for an ally
she was in the wrong country.
"Melissa is right," Esperanza said. "She understood the señora better than any of us and she should prepare her. My daughter Maricela will help her.
They will make her look beautiful."