Friday is my Grandmother’s birthday party. She is turning 85. It got postponed because my cousin died. She is not inconvenienced. She’s too regal. But you still don’t throw the ultimo and a birthday on the same day. The ultimo is the last day of the 9-day prayer vigil; it’s what western people would officially consider a wake. It’s the one where people cry. The ultimo goodbye. The one I dread. My grandmother keeps walking around the house sighing wistfully and saying things like ‘not long till Reagan’s no longer on earth’ ‘Not long til his soul is free of this world’. WTF, it creeps me out.
Everyone is really fine about his alma (soul) just hanging out for 9 days. Things that I find confronting and heartbreaking are natural ways that people here process their grief. It’s front street. They give it so much space to breathe. One night at his mortorio, there was an open can of coke sitting on his coffin. I’m thinking oh how awkward maybe his drunk ass father in law just left it there… His sister-in-law catches me looking at the coke can with the same puzzled expression I look at everything with. Polite reservation. Like I just don’t seem to grasp anything, like they can’t grasp this awful Australian accent. She hands me a plate of food (have you ever eaten in a room with a corpse? I have- it’s the polite thing to do). She tells me that Jeff (one of my cousin’s sons. He’s 7 maybe?) put it there yesterday because ‘that’s what Daddy was asking for when he died’. Wow. I don’t know how this scenario is going to play out today. I’ll keep you updated with what I’m being forced to stomach. We leave for his funeral in a few hours. I like the transitioning of soul and grief into another world with all this religious veiling. I fear that I’m still catholic and I fear that I still find it comforting.
I’m amused that the world doesn’t give a fuck about timing. I buried my friend the day before my best friend got married. I will bury my cousin the day before my grandmother has her ‘last birthday party’ (morbid and her words not mine). I prayed to Santa Clara that it wouldn’t rain; I think I prayed too hard cause we just got a notice from the water company saying they’re cutting water from Friday 5pm to Saturday 5am. Omg, the party is the 6th of October at 6pm. One more six and it will be kissed by the devil. I made that expression up. Maybe I’m being superstitious. Or maybe death, water restrictions, hell or high-water can’t stop my Grandmother from throwing her damn birthday party. No wonder I’m so stubborn.