7. “Que en paz dezcanse mi tíaEnedina Loza Guzman”

I found out that my aunt had passed on the morning of January 16th 2015 as I checked Facebook at the hotel during breakfast, my cousin had tagged me in a post that read “Que en paz dezcanse mi tía Enedina Loza Guzman.. .. Mala noticia pero todos sabemos q esta en un lugar mejor… Solo nos queda darle una buena despedida….” Rest in peace Aunt Enedina Loza Guzman, bad news but we all know that she is in a better place. All that is left is for us to give her a good send off.

My aunt passed away in Mexico while I slept in Mindanao, I was a million miles way, a lot farther than I would have been had I stayed in California over J-Term. This was probably the most difficult day I faced while on the trip, part of me wanted to drop everything and start making my journey home, but I knew I would never make it in time so I froze instead, feeling numb. The news of her passing wasn’t a surprise, before leaving I had gotten the news that my aunt had suffered a stroke and might not last very long but her passing was still a shock. My aunt was the first of my parents’ generation to pass, which marked a new chapter in my life, I had already buried all my grandparent and now it was time to start burring the next generation, suddenly my parents seemed a lot older and more fragile than they did on January 15th.

I went through the motions of the day, mostly in silence trying to use the day’s activities as a distraction but focusing all of my energy on keeping my composure. In my experience death always causes a pause, a brief standstill and it was difficult to process the death with it. I felt like I was not allowed to stop, not allowed to grieve properly. In Mexico the family gatherers and is together from the funeral wake through the Novenario, the nine days following the burial where they go through the rosary prayers. Thought I was sad that I couldn’t be part of the traditional grieving process, I was also a relief to have something to do since I could not hop on the first flight to Mexico. This event changed how I processed what I was seeing and experiencing in Mindanao that day, we went to a displaced community where we toured around and were told that multiple families lived in a tiny room, there was poor sanitation and resources for them. Yes I saw the poverty, but while my colleges might have felt sorry for these people I was jealous, they were with their families and I was not. I heard all the negative statistics, but all I saw was kids playing; teenagers walking around; people buying street food; neighbors talking and grandparent’s sitting on porches, people watching. The concrete streets and the various scenes reminded me of the neighborhood my grandmother’s house is in, in Ecatepec Mexico, and with a heavy heart I listened to my colleagues reactions and wondered if I was the only one in the van that was looking passed the poverty.