Tomorrow night I leave for Mexico, the 16Th is the one year anniversary of my aunt's death. She died last year very unexpectedly, she had cancer a few years and she had surgery, came out of the hospital ready to keep living. Then one day she said her stomach started hurting so she went to the doctor and apparently she needed surgery again because her stomach had swollen up like a balloon. The doctor said if her stomach continued to swell up there was a possibility of it exploding, so the next day she went in for surgery and did not come out alive. While in surgery she had a stroke and then fell into a coma which she did not wake up from. The night before I was in my dorm watching TV waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for my sister to call and tell me that our aunt had woken up from the coma, my family was at home waiting we didn't get much sleep that night.
Then the calls came around 8:00 a.m.and my sister bought a ticket for my mom to leave ahead of us, my dad at fist couldn't make up his mind if he should stay or go; regardless of that they were also waiting for me because I was school in Wisconsin. I remember walking around frantically in my dorm crying not knowing what to grab, I kept trying to call work to see if anyone had gotten there early. I kept thinking "if I were calling the Oak Park Pier 1 Ana would definitely be there by now or hell I would just call one of their cells." Then I realized I had no way of getting to the train station, I was going to ask my neighbor for a ride but in the end my therapist took me. I had an appointment with him that day, which I obviously had to cancel. Before that I had emailed and called my professors to let them know about my situation, but I remember being afraid of missing class because the courses are only 8 weeks longs and I was afraid of being dropped but in the end I was told to not worry at all. I was at the train for what seemed like an eternity because I had missed the 10:30 train, by 10 minutes. The next one was not until 12:30. At first I sat there with my thoughts and that got annoying, and I wouldn't stop crying so I tried calling one of former professors but she was unavailable so I called my mentor and she calmed me down, at least enough for me to get on the train.
Afterwards I was waiting and this man came up to me trying to get me to let him give me a ride to Chicago in the end I told him "Look I don't mean to sound rude, but I just lost someone I really loved and I have to go home and go to the funeral and I really don't want to be bothered right now." Truth be spoken he talked for a while but I don't remember a word he said. I was thinking about the last time I had seen my aunt and how I was a little disappointed that she didn't want to go to the beach with us in the end but in the end we were all saying that it was better that she didn't go. She loved us so much, she was more of a grandmother to me than my actual grandmothers, I don't remember when I told her this but I remember when I told her, she hugged me and told me she loved me.
The funeral was by far one of the saddest days in my life, in Mexico they don't hold a wake they bury the person the very next day; which means that when my sister, dad and me got there, we only had about an hour or two to rest and get ready. I didn't want to look inside the coffin because I knew I would start crying and for some reason I didn't want to cry. I was trying to be strong for my nephews but in the end at the cemetery I finally couldn't take it anymore, I saw everyone else crying even my mom and I though "OK if my mom is crying then it's OK for me to cry." i thought that day was the saddest day of my life, but I was wrong the saddest day was the last night we were there.
In Mexico when someone dies they have a rosary services for a week, and basically what it is, it's a prayer service for an hour every night for a week. I got away with being in the next room babysitting the only baby that did not cry when I held her ( a rarity for me). The last night however I had to be in the room and we had a little memorial setup with lots of flowers, candles, and a cross in the middle of it all. The cross represented her, when the cross was picked up, and her Godparents were sweeping up the ashes, I again tried to not cry but saw my mom and everyone else just bursting with tears, and I was sort of relieved to know that it was OK to cry. It was like saying goodbye to her allover again, I couldn't stand it.
All I kept thinking was "why the hell would you guys do something like this, this feels horrible. Saying goodbye to her once was hard enough but having to feel like you're saying goodbye all over again. I hate this!" After that service I felt so tired, and I could see it in everyone's faces as well. Everyone looked as if they were exhausted and didn't know what to do next, not a very good feeling to have in my opinion. The next day we were on a plane back to Chicago, the next day I was on a train back to Wisconsin but I decided I didn't want to be alone after this. I also was not to crazy about leaving my mom so I commuted back and forth for the entire first semester. When I went back to Wisconsin I stayed in my room for a few hours before my first class and cried for what seemed like an eternity. Went to class tried but failed miserably at focusing.
When I went back to Chicago that Wednesday I called my friend Darien and asked him to meet me. He called me when I got into town and asked if I wanted to go out with him and a few friends for margaritas. "At first I thought Darien doesn't like margaritas why would he go?" I wasn't in the mood to drink, I just I don't know what I wanted to be honest with you, I knew I didn't want to go home right away that much I remember, I ended up waiting for him at the library where I bursted into tears with a friend of mine, thinking "ok I cried, so I won't cry in front of Darien." When he picked me up I tried to act like nothing was wrong but that lasted about two seconds before he held me and I cried for a while. Afterwards we went for hot chocolate and walked around and talked, and that's all I remember now. Here's an interesting fact I don't remember thinking about it after that night with Darien for a while at least until Christmas eve, because that was going to be the first Christmas without her.
Somewhere in between all the crying and all of the rosaries and the food I thought about two things: The first one being me thinking at the funeral, "wow, now with my aunt gone, my mom and sister are head of the family now. My mom is the head when we're there and my sister is the head when my isn't there." The other thing I thought and I told my mom to do was that our sister was going to need us to really stay in touch, especially with the holidays coming up. My mom agreed with me 100%. I do remember other little things but they are not as important as everything else. We leave tomorrow night, "why are we leaving so early when she died the 16Th?" we asked our mom apparently in Mexico you start the rosaries 10 days before and then the actual day of the anniversary you hold a small church ceremony. I know you all were not able to see this but I was sitting crying my eyes as I was typing all of this. Remembering everything and every little detail about that week and knowing we're about to go through it again was very sad; truthfully I'll be surprised if I make it through the week without crying once. So here's my question for you...do you remember every little detail about the saddest days in your life?
No comments:
Post a Comment