Yesterday was the “celebration of life” service for my Tía Nora, who passed away from Lewy body dementia at age 74 the other week.
It was a beautiful service with speeches from my cousin, her eldest daughter, my other cousin, her niece for whom she was like a second mother, her grandson and my father, who also counted her as his best friend. I had been feeling nervous for the service, how it could open the faucet of emotions so fully, including ones I may not yet have felt and was fearful to feel.
It did elicit a multitude of emotions, and not in the way I expected. I did cry. And I was touched to see so many friends of my aunt, as well as my father—friends of our family—there, including on Zoom, in loving support. I felt a well of gratitude I’ve only touched before when friends and loved ones have shown up and met me, both literally and figuratively, in the most trying of times.
I felt strength and admiration at seeing my cousin, who oversaw my aunt’s around-the-clock care in her decline and at the end of her time, as my aunt’s only wish had been to close her life in her beloved in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico.
My cousin organized a service befitting of the beauty and spirit of my aunt, all while moving through grief that persists. Her words showed the love and appreciation they’d had for each other, the fun they’d shared and how my aunt had touched so many lives and was so beloved.
I laughed when my father shared favorite memories of his older sister and accompanying life lessons she imparted from their childhood growing up in Mexico, which my aunt had said were her happiest days. I felt the power of familial love at hearing the words of my cousin, her niece, and realizing how deeply we have cared for each other and how we have shown that, and how that has transformed our lives. And when her young teenage grandson spoke of his grandmother being there in the “best and worst moments,” I remembered, felt, what it was like to be that age, in the intensity and changes of life.
And in many moments, and even now, I feel all of these things at once. They say grief is love wearing a disguise. I think—I feel, after last night—that it wears many disguises, and comes to visit us often.
Sometimes it feels like we’re sitting on the bank of the river watching the water flow past; sometimes it feels like we’re the rushing water itself.
I’m grateful to feel this, all of this.