memorializing.

 

Memorial Day weekend has marked some big moments in my life. 

 

I moved to my own beloved house on Memorial Day 11 years ago. (Shortly before the housing market skyrocketed!)

 

10 years ago, over Memorial Day weekend, I shot the pilot episode of the series that to this day remains the biggest creative project I've undertaken.

And 5 years ago, in my home country where this isn't a holiday, one of the most important people in my life would be taking her last breaths.

Rosy's unexpected departure is still somehow an open wound. Maybe because I was unable to return to take care of her remains according to her wishes, and pack up her things and collect all the mementos she had of our lives together -- because although I was her only family left, the state couldn't recognize us as such.

 

Haydée, Rosy and I were an unconventional family trio.

Haydée had the official title of being my "fake grandma", although she was actually the only grandma I grew up with, and she adored me with the passion of one hundred abuelas. Haydée's unconditional, pure love for me was something I never experienced in my blood family, and it is no stretch to declare that it saved my life, or at least my spirit. We were soul mates, and belonged only to one another. She had no other grandchildren. I had no other grandma*. Being together was inexplicable joy, undeniable to all who witnessed us.
(*technically, I did)

Rosy was Haydée's daughter. The best title we could come up with to describe our relationship was that she was my "spiritual godmother", gifted to me by life. [Rosy was almost 10 years younger than my mom, and didn't have children.] Now, Rosy and Haydée were as different as can be - cat person/dog person, night owl/morning person, introvert/extrovert... simply opposites in every possible way. Although they lived most of their lives together, they really struggled to get along. 

 

I was a bridge between them ever since I entered the picture (when I was ~6 months old). The tension between them disappeared the moment I stepped through the door of (any iteration of) their small apartment. Like I was the missing ingredient, needed to surface the love and jovial dynamic that was dormant in their home, that could only flourish when we were all together.

Their home was a blatant shrine to me. Pictures of me at every age on every wall and surface. (And later, of Kayen, too.) This is how the police knew to contact me when they found Rosy dead in her apartment 5 years ago.

(I don't mean to jump ahead.)

Haydée's last eight years of life were very difficult for both of them; she had Alzheimer's (*I believe it was Lewy body dementia) and Rosy was her primary caretaker. Haydée talked about wanting to die long before her wishes were granted, so when she finally passed in 2010, at the age of 82, we could be glad that her pain was finally over despite our sorrow.

What I didn't expect was for Rosy to live only 6 more years after that, and die at 62. 

 

I think she died of loneliness, and of aloneness. 

 

I say aloneness, because, unbeknownst to me, Rosy had kidney disease. And she had no one to take care of her in order to survive it. (That's a very tough pill for me to swallow, all the way up here in the northern hemisphere living my best life.)

 

I say loneliness, because despite a life of clashing, capped with the horrors of taking care of a mother who eventually ceased to recognize her own daughter, once Haydée was gone, Rosy was haunted by her absence. She spoke of Haydée with a love she had never allowed herself to express while they were both alive. She missed her in the depths of her being. I think that without Haydée, Rosy felt lonelier than she ever imagined she could feel.

Even though we obviously were positioned differently in it, we did have each other to share that loss. We held the memory of our Haydée together. We got to talk about her and laugh at our inside jokes and hold space for our mutual mourning.

But when Rosy left, our family of 3 suddenly ceased to exist. I couldn't cremate her. I couldn't retrieve Haydée's ashes from the apartment. I was left alone with all our memories, and with both their legacies - which ended with me. Whatever slips away from my remembrance is gone forever.

I didn't understand true grief until Rosy left. 

The timelessness of it.
I write this from the same hollow sorrow I have been in since 2016.
Some edges don't necessarily soften with time. Some answers don't come.