By Emily Valentine
September 2018, I embarked on a treacherous journey – high school. Already, I felt like a bottom feeder, a child amidst young adults. So much to adjust to, and so much to be fearfully excited about. With all of my extra-curriculars and the pressure of whether to fit in or stand out, school was the only thing on my mind.
By day two though, I was starting to get into the groove of things. I had Spanish class, ate lunch with my friends, sang along to the radio with my carpool group. This day that became so unlike any other, felt absolutely normal. I was dropped off at home after school like any other day. My parents had been nagging me to walk my dog more, so I decided to get that over with first. On my way to the backyard, I was intercepted by one of our cleaners. We had cleaners come by every so often, the same ones that clean my cousin’s house just ten minutes away. They mostly only spoke Spanish so we didn’t converse often, but we’d had the same cleaners my whole existence – even without speaking, they were a regular part of my life, they watched me grow up.
This time, one of them stopped me on the way to grab my dog’s leash. This never happened, so already I had a strange feeling, and the frantic look in her eye intensified this. She was trying to talk to me in Spanish. Since I was taking lessons at school, I tried my best to make out the only slightly familiar, hasty words being thrown at me.
“Tu tía está muerta.” was all that I understood, and I didn’t trust my translation skills. My aunt is dead? I thought. No, that’s impossible. I shook even the mere thought of it off. I wasn’t going to understand what she was trying to tell me, and I certainly wasn’t going to believe one of my loved ones was dead. Eventually, I just said “Okay”, and proceeded to leash my dog and take off on my walk. Still, the interaction was odd and left me uneasy, so I texted my aunt asking her to check in, and called my mom.
“Mom, the weirdest thing just happened – one of our cleaners just told me that Aunt Kim died?”
“What? No. That’s not true. Everything is fine sweetheart.”
“Okay.”
I couldn’t rid myself of the bad feeling. The word muerte, death, rattled through my head. A word of that weight is hard to mistake.
Sure enough, no more than ten minutes later, I got a call from my mom. My aunt was alive, but not well. It was my uncle. My uncle had died. “Tu tío está muerto”, I had almost heard her correctly. He died of a heart attack and fell against the bathroom door, where my cleaners found him. They called the ambulance and went on their way to my house where they found me and attempted to break the somber news. I was the first person in my family to know.
I got a text from my aunt.
“Emily please do not say anything
Matthew (my cousin) doesn’t know – no one knows”
My cousin didn’t know yet that his own father was gone. My heart began to weep for him. I held onto this news and didn’t know what to do with it. I sat with my dog, and the word muerte, by a creek. I tried to ground myself in nature to feel stable in some way. I must have been there for a while in all my confusion and shock, because at some point my parents had gotten home, wondering where I was. My mom began ordering that I come back, saying how rude it was not to be with family at a time like this. She never understood how hard it is for me to pull myself away from a space where I’m alone with my feelings. But eventually I peeled myself off the ground.
The next day at school I had Spanish class. Muerte rang through my head. I couldn’t focus on anything being taught – I didn’t want to hear Spanish. I told myself I was being dramatic, but the way his death was communicated to me deeply affected my psyche.
About a week later, my parents spent the day with my aunt to help her plan the funeral. They told me my cousin shouldn’t be alone so he’d be coming over for us to spend time together. My cousin Matthew and I used to be very close, only a year apart and living near each other, but around puberty a crevice started forming between us. We became different people and lost our connection. I still loved him, but I didn’t feel as comfortable around him anymore, and I was anxious to be forced into one-on-one time.
Matthew came over before I was awake. In high school I always slept in egregiously late on the weekends. My parents said it was okay that I slept in since he’d be over most of the day, so long as I spent time with him when I woke up. I told them I would. I told myself I would. When I woke up, I felt like I had to mentally prepare myself to face him. His dad had just died. I didn’t know how to even approach, not to mention comfort and be alone with someone going through that. I’d experienced death before in my life, but death of a parent… we were just old enough to comprehend it but way too young to experience it. It was a whole new tragedy I couldn’t yet grasp.
I felt stuck to my bed. I didn’t know how to break the ice. I didn’t know what to say to him. I was absolutely paralyzed with a mix of anxiety and grief, and the minutes ticked by. I heard him walking around downstairs. I remember him playing piano for a little while. Just go talk to him. Say anything. Anything is better than nothing. I thought to myself. Still, I stayed in my room. There was already a divide between us. Hours passed. My parents and aunt eventually came back. I had never left my room. I left him completely alone. The divide between us must have grown three sizes that day.
My parents couldn’t believe my lack of effort to do anything. I was crippled with guilt. I still feel guilty about this. But at the same time, I was fifteen. I had just undergone my own trauma with this death. I was grappling with elephant feelings.
Matthew and I continued to grow apart. I was too busy with myself to mend that rift, or even to grieve my uncle. I reflect on this experience, how school mattered to me more than all else, and wish I could go back in time to remind myself there are more important elements to life, like family.
About a month later was my uncle’s funeral. My uncle was family, of course, but I never truly got that close to him. He was older, and just didn’t have the energy or interest in entertaining young kids. He could be kind and exceptionally funny – we just never got the opportunity to click. If he had still been around today, I think we’d get along.
Since I didn’t feel that close with my uncle, his funeral was odd. I was mostly excited to see my sisters since they’re older and we don’t get together often. Apart from my immediate family, Aunt Kim, and Matthew, the service was mostly filled with faces I’d never seen before. Just how much I didn’t know my uncle became abundantly apparent when the speeches started. Friends of his told riveting stories about him running around the streets of Chicago, where he was from. These stories sounded nothing like my uncle. They were colorful stories of a fun man I never had the pleasure of meeting.
I’m still harrowed by this whole experience. Me being the first to find out my uncle had passed, and then coming to realize I had spent so much time with him, but never really knew him at all. Eventually, Matthew graduated high school. I was in the crowd at his senior choir performance where he unveiled that he would be attending the University of Illinois, his father’s alma mater. The funny thing is, our family didn’t want him to go to Illinois. Though it was a beautiful tribute to his dad, they thought he could do “better”. I’m so grateful he ended up there. He’s become a different person, like he’s moving past all that he’s gone through and finally growing into his own. We’ve gotten closer again. His dad would be proud. And though I guess I never knew him that well, I hope he’s proud of me, too.