One thing I've learned from attending a funeral today is that it doesn't matter what your relation to a person is; it doesn't matter what your opinions of them are; it doesn't even matter how you feel about them. When they die, all it takes is a flash of melancholy music triggered memories, and you'll cry.
When I was little, my mom and dad would fight, and my mom and I would go to her house in Talavera to cool down. I was so small, I used to clutch to a rag doll for dear life, and people scared me. There was this one particularly big man there. He always had a knife in his hand, and always, they'd mess with me, saying I was brought there to be slaughtered. I always cried.
She used to clean my ears and invite me over for lunch when we became neighbors. She once disdainfully said I was growing up being rebellious, and that I was hard headed. It was true, but it hurt me nonetheless. Ever since then, I decided not to like her anymore.
She was my grandmother's sister. Through the years they'd grown apart, pulled away from each other by jealousy, envy, and false accusations. She once hired someone to kill my grandmother. As soon as I heard of this, I told myself I'd never forgive her.
Today, I joined the procession of people who laid her to rest. People who didn't bother wearing white or black, and stuck to floral prints and red shirts. People who never cared what kind of person she was, what she was willing to do in exchange for a happier life. They'd whispered in the past, once or twice, about her personal life, the things she must have been regretting. They think studying what floats on the surface is enough to say you know a person well, but they're all wrong.
She wasn't a saint. The last time I saw her, she was all skin and bones, and I was scared. Still, I touched her hand to my forehead, a sign of respect for the elderly in my country. Cancer had eaten away at her physique and left us with an unrecognizable person, not speaking, not moving, not able to fend for herself. She had her fair share of mistakes and wrongful doings, and most of them have been aimed at my family, but today, watching her children grieve her departure, it was a struggle to blink back the tears.
I've learned, as I stood there feigning indifference, that I never hated her. My heart has been coated with dislike, but I've realized that in spite of all of those things I resented, she's a mother. Her children are hurting because she had provided them with the love they needed and deserved.
When I see her in my mind, she's still that healthy, cigarette smoking woman I've been so used to seeing. It's been a hard battle for her, but it has ended now, and much to my relief, she'll find peace.
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