Death and I are friends. Always cool but never tight. In fact, we barely spoke. Definitely weren't peoples like that. But every couple of years, Death would appear to remind me of his existence. Sorta like that outta the blue phone call from a lover you haven't seen in years or a neighborhood playmate you haven't thought of since junior high.
The first time I knew Death was more than the boogeyman or diving into the deep end of the pool, I was 8 and a half years old. Papa, my father's father, swiftly lost his battle with cancer and six months after being diagnosed was at Rodriguez Funeral home for a two day stint surrounded by black clad mourners, weeping sons and neighborhood heroes who recalled Don Jorge. Soon after he took permant residencey at Bushwick Cemetary.
In the decades after I saw Death steal high school classmates, work colleagues, friends of friends...in short no one I was close to or called family. I pushed Deaths presence to the back of my mind, like a date you say you'll make but never do.
Then on the cusp of turning 30 years old, Death rudely showed up on my front porch. My Titi Gloria-- a church-going-chain-smoking-sunshine-smile-wearing-woman-- met her demise from cancer a few short weeks after being diagnosed formally. It felt like bricks fell on my head; worse than any two-timing heartbreak or screaming macth I'd ever had. Mortality was real and my elders--my parents,aunts, uncles, cousins,family friends--were ready companions.
The issue with being the youngest child of youngest children, means I will continue to go to funerals, wakes, memorials and burials with every passing year.
The three years since Titi Gloria passed have been like Death's got my name on his permanent rsvp list. My mother's sister unexpectedly passed on in September 2009. Family friends, beloveds of my beloved, siblings of my sisters, and just months ago, another one of my mother's sisters.
In the past nine months I've been to more burials than I've ever attended in my entire life. Cloaked in sadness. Immersed in grief. Or worse, numb to it all.
The more spirits, lives and families are lost, the more Death manages to live by my side like a close friend rather than a distant acquaintance. I am almost grateful that it has come to reside by me, preparing me for its frequent visits rather than being a surprising reminder that he exists. Almost. Not entirely. Because when I stop to consider what is left when he's gone--the emotional exhaustion, the physical pain of longing, the dull ache of depression--I prefer to rarely see his face than be familiar with its contours and expressions.
