A Sad Start to the New Year

There’s video extant from one of my grandfather’s rollicking birthday parties back in the early ‘90s. The birthday parties where the family would book a mariachi band, cook a lot of food, make a lot of canela con tequila, and wake up my grandparents at 5am with “Las mañanitas” playing for my grandfather. In this particular moment, though, a random woman is sitting next to my grandfather in what had been my grandmother’s chair—she had gotten up to get herself a cup of coffee and ended up standing, as close to my grandfather as possible, but not wanting to be rude to what was essentially a guest in her house. Out of the frame my own father emerges, not quite drunk on tequila yet, to shoo away the woman and gently guide my grandmother to her rightful place besides my grandfather as king and queen of the party. She smiles and thanks him, and then the party is how it should be thanks to the son-in-law she wasn’t sure she wanted but ended up adoring.

Last night, at about 10 minutes to the New Year, I received a call from my little brother that my mother was booking a flight for today because my grandmother is dying in Mexico.

And I can’t really explain how I feel right now. I’m crying as I write this, but I am so grateful to have the memories that I do of her. I know that I am so lucky to have her in my life (a huge part of me wants to write in the past tense, but I need to refuse to do so until I hear news that she is gone). My grandmother named me—while my mother would’ve conferred the horrors that are Victoria or Diana on me, and my father wanted to go all indigenous on me with Xochil (let me tell you, that would’ve sucked in Saline, Michigan), my grandmother convinced my mother to name me [WordNerd] instead. My father was already introducing me as Victoria to his friends (my father was in the States, working, when I was born), but had to correct himself and his friends when he learned my real name, thanks to my abuelita. Mi Mamá Nacha.

It’s the memories that are getting me; I thought that I’d feel a lot of guilt when she reached the end of her life because traveling to our area of Mexico is no easy feat, and it isn’t often that I’m there. Once out of school, it was tough to find any kind of time thanks to work and my stingy string of bosses. Surprisingly, I don’t feel guilty about not being there, but I know I will miss her dearly if she passes, and it’s kind of shocking to think that Mamá Nacha won’t be there anymore. She’s been such a constant in my life, from naming me to showing me her cherished golden colored Bible, scolding me for skipping church or encouraging me to eat more mole or frijoles con aguacate. I remember her insistence that I eat, eat a lot of tunas (prickly pear, not the fish); I now can’t eat them thanks to that insistence, but I laugh at the memory. I would look on in dismay as more crate of tunas were brought to her house even as my sister rubbed her hands together and smacked her lips in anticipation; the whole time, my grandmother was grinning happily, and I couldn’t bring myself to say no because she was just trying to make us happy.

In the end, if she passes, Mamá Nacha would’ve had a long life; she’s in her nineties and has outlived my grandfather for more than a decade. Her life hasn’t been easy the past few years: a lot of pain, bouts of dementia and shitty caretakers that “help” my family who’s down in Mexico taking care of her. It is probably time for her to let go because she needs the rest—she’s earned it in spades after eight children, countless grandchildren, great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren. She was the most patient of wives, mothers and grandmothers—like I said before, we are so lucky that she’s in our lives, and lucky that, even as we have to lose her, we lose her after a long time of enjoying being with her.

We’ve had a couple of instances where my grandmother hasn’t been well and death seemed like the next step, but she’s always recovered. Given my mother’s hurried flight to Mexico and this horrible sadness I’m feeling, I’m afraid that this time, the story won’t be the same. I hope my grandmother’s strong Catholic faith carries her through if she’s reaching the end; even as I find it impossible to believe in an afterlife, she does. And all I can wish for her, as she prepares to leave us, is that seat next to my grandfather so that the king and queen of the party can sit together again, forever.