Gypsy Jan
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Burying Eula - A Day of the Dead Story, Pt. III
(Reposted from mexconnect.com, author Karen Hursh Graber)
"This was my moment: queen of the hop, member of the wedding. I was to play an important role in the events that were unfolding before my family´s
rather bewildered eyes. And to be included in the same grown-up category as Maricela! Maricela was five years older than I and had celebrated her
quinceañera the summer we arrived in San Pedrito. It had been the first of many social functions in which our family would be included, and the sight
of Maricela dancing her first waltz in a big, hoop-skirted dress the same pink color as her five-tiered cake had been impressive. I had looked up to
her ever since, trying to copy what I considered to be her sophisticated mannerisms and, to the limited extent permitted by my mother, styles of
clothing.
My grandfather was led into the living room, where his eyes lit up at the sight of all the neighbors who had come to pay their respects. I followed
Maricela into the bedroom, where Eula was in her bed looking remarkably like she always had while napping. Maricela appraised Eula in a business-like
way and proceeded to wad up two small cotton balls, which she pushed delicately into the small, P-nched nostrils. She touched Eula´s forehead, lifted
the covers to touch her feet and pronounced her calientita, not yet cold and stiff as I´d imagined.
"First, pick out her clothes," she ordered. "Then we´ll put on the underwear, then the dress and shoes and then we´ll fix her hair. We can put a
little bit of my makeup on her." Maricela seemed so confident.
"Have you ever done this before?" I asked.
"Sure, I helped with my abuelita and also when my cousin Nati´s baby died." She added importantly, "I can also give injections and put in sueros." I
knew that sueros were intravenous fluids, because one time I had gone to visit a friend from school who was home with a bad stomach infection and had
been lying in bed with a needle taped into her arm and a plastic pouch of liquid hanging on a pole next to the bed. I could not imagine trying to get
a needle into someone´s vein and silently vowed to exhibit no squeamishness around the accomplished Maricela.
I took a deep breath and reached out to touch Eula´s cheek. It was a bit cool, but not cold and certainly not unpleasant. Something still there and
something gone. "Yes," I said with what I considered to be my newly-acquired sophistication, "She could use a little lipstick."
A couple of the men lifted Eula into her coffin, where Maricela´s and my handiwork was admired. My grandfather was particularly taken by how "sweet
and pretty" she looked. I knew he was proud of me.
The next day, everyone who had been at the house the night before went to the mass and then, following in a long line behind Don Beto´s pick-up truck,
which contained the coffin in the back and Grandpa in the front passenger seat, walked to the cemetary. Everyone carried flowers, mostly gladiolas,
red and white. I walked next to Maricela, feeling a bit more her equal than I had in the past. My mother and aunt were the only ones carrying
umbrellas, which proved to be handy because when we got to the cemetary the skies let loose with a fierce downpour, the kind called an aguacero, where
the paved roads flood and the dirt roads turn to mud.
My grandfather, overcome with grief and the pain in his ankle, had to be carried by two of the men to the gravesite, where Don Beto thoughtfully
placed one of his folding chairs. Everyone stood in the rain saying another rosary while my mother and my aunt took turns leaning over grandpa with an
umbrella and the gravediggers slowly and skillfully lowered Eula´s coffin into the ground with ropes.
As they covered it back over with dirt, someone took out a pack of cigarettes and began passing them around. Everyone, even the oldest ladies who
never smoked, took at least one puff, to chase away any bad spirits. Maricela cooly French-inhaled and passed her cigarette to me. Another first! I
thought it tasted terrible and passed it to someone else. If my mother noticed, she didn´t mention it then or ever.
Not until the last shovelful of earth was in place did anyone turn to leave, and afterward everyone came to our house to eat hot soup, red rice and
one of Esperanza´s guisados, which she had stayed home from the cemetary to cook. That night and for nine consecutive nights neighbors came to pray
for Eula´s soul as it made it´s journey, and to eat sweet rolls and drink coffee.
That was in early September. In early November, during the Days of the Dead, Esperanza supervised the ofrenda, an altar set up to commemorate the
family members who have died. We set out a picture of Eula, smiling, taken before she started to get sick, and plates of her favorite foods. There was
also water to refresh her during her visit back to the family, and incense and marigolds, whose fragrance would lead her to the right home. We all
enjoyed setting out special things that we remembered seemed to make her happy during those times when we were permitted a glance into the person
behind the illness. Grandpa wasn´t supposed to eat sweets, but everytime he stopped to admire the altar he snatched a few of Eula´s M&Ms and no
one told him not to.
To this day, there is a family altar built in our house at the beginning of November. My children are very young, but they understand that we are
remembering the people in the pictures. Even when I went back to the States for a few years in a university, I made my own little altar each year. As
time went by, more pictures got added, including my grandfather´s.
Grandpa lived for several years after Eula died and when we went to bury him we had a surprise waiting. As the gravediggers dug Grandpa´s spot next to
Eula, we were amazed to see that there was another coffin on top of hers, a tiny, homemade box. Anyone´s best guess was that some poor person who had
lost a baby and couldn´t afford a plot had paid one of the cemetary workers a few extra pesos to slip it in somewhere. All the neighbors said how
wonderful it was that now Eula and my grandfather had their own baby, since they had been too old when they met to have one. And I thought back to the
time of burying Eula and realized that Esperanza had never called me niña again."
Published or Updated on: January 1, 2006 by Karen Hursh Graber © 2008
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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Eli
Super Nomad
Posts: 1471
Registered: 8-26-2003
Location: L.B. Baja Sur
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Mood: Some times Observing, sometimes Oblivious.
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Thank You for bringing this me this story Gypsy Jan.
Sitting here drinking my morning coffee, dunking into it a Pan de Muerto, listening to the firecrackers announcing the dead, they have been going off
all night, later today, they will be lit again to send the visiting souls back to where they came from, certainly it could not have been a better
moment to read this story.
As I read, I revised my father's Rosario, the neighbors all sitting listening to Dona Rosa recite, my own chuckle within recalling how he always took
flight when ever she came to visit him on that same porch, this night he could not hide, he was trapped in the coffin at her side.
As I always do every Nov. 1st, I made Papa a little alter, this year I built it outside in a succulent garden that has 1 rose plant in the middle of
all the cactus. I placed my offerings under the watchful eye of A little Virgin de Guadaupe that I painted on a broken roof tile that rests against a
Nopal Cactus. In my offering I included his cigarettes, a bottle of beer, tangerines, peanuts, lots of Marigolds, I added a couple of tiny clay
Catrina's, (Dad did Love Women, Dona Lupe may have been his great Love, but certainly not his only). This year I used a candy skull to represent him
and a white sugar Angel to represent my sister who died when she was a baby, it is right that today she should be by his side. Oh, and I included a
little calavera cat, Dad loved his cats. Last night I lite candles and copal in a urn so that he might find his way to me. I sat content alone in the
dark and remembered him for a while and than I went to bed and slept soundly. It was a small simple offering this year, but so good to sit a moment
and visit with him again. I never miss him, he is always there in my heart.
I do Love Dia de Muertos, it is after all when all comes to life again.
Sara
[Edited on 11-2-2010 by Eli]
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Gypsy Jan
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4275
Registered: 1-27-2004
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Hi Eli, Thanks for Sharing
I confess, when I posted this story, I thought of you and Don Jimmy and wondered how you spent the day.
And now, I know.
It sounds like you made a lovely and hospitable place for him in your home (and he always has a place in your heart). I am sure he was attracted to
the beautiful ofrenda.
I don't come from the tradition, but I lit candles last night and enjoyed recalling memories of departed family and friends.
I hope they saw the light and shared my smiles with me.
[Edited on 11-2-2010 by Gypsy Jan]
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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Eli
Super Nomad
Posts: 1471
Registered: 8-26-2003
Location: L.B. Baja Sur
Member Is Offline
Mood: Some times Observing, sometimes Oblivious.
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Thank You for thinking of Me Jan. I believe that we are of a global village, we may adopt what ever rituals appeal to us, it is one of the advantages
of these times. I am sure they saw your light and smiled with you, why not?
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