La Trini

-READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED-

It’s been three years and still, I can not drink water out of a plastic bottle. I can no longer stand the sight of empty spaces in the center of living rooms. I was never a fan of wooded twin sized beds but since March 28th, 2020, I refuse to look at one and much less, sit on one. “She lived a good… long life,” they said. “She needed to rest,” they said. “At least she is at peace, now…”, they repeated over and over… and over. They just don’t know.

Her scent still lingers.

Her last days were spent in pain and agony with no appetite. She no longer ate out of joy, but merely to stay alive unwillingly. Once brown, indigenous skin, succumbed with IV scabs and pale patches from her diagnosed anemia, diabetes and cancer. For years she complained about leaving us. She prayed for God to be merciful and to release her from her pain. But no one understood that the pain she felt was from deep within. Ninety-three years on Earth, professing love and devotion to your husband and children, will do that to you. When your lover is taken to the skies above and your children grow old and reproduce, what do you live for? Self-love isn’t taught in the fields. Even when she sold Mexican Cal to her village, who was that for? Not her.

She had been denying food for nearly a week and hospice reassured us she was fine. I guess we didn’t understand what hospice truly was. I remember the nurses name.

Anwar.

For days, she had been hearing homilies in song. Joy would flood her tired face when she would ask, “Do you hear that?”. At 5:00 a.m., she woke up to tell my mom that the kids had been messing with her eyelids all night and were giggling. She kept trying to shoo them away but they wouldn’t stop. The kids weren’t there, they were tucked in bed, and no music played over night.

At 6:28 a.m. she was cold and unresponsive.

I cleared the house, leaving my mother, father, myself and my dead Mexican Queen to endure this pain alone. My mother was never able to control her emotions and today was no different. She freaked out and relinquished control to me, as she always does when things get too tough. Being my father’s mother who was laying lifeless in the twin sized bed, he was mute and officially scarred for life… as was I. I called 9-1-1 and was prompted to lay her down in an open area and begin CPR. She had a DNR but who keeps track of those documents anyway.

“How do you know she is no longer alive?” the 9-1-1 operator asked. Well, she was cold and wasn’t moving. What kind of fucking question is that? “She’s not moving and she was 93 years old. She was under hospice care. I need help, I can’t lift her alone.” I said. As if I was the only one in the home. The home that has now claimed two souls.

Husband and wife.

My father and I mustered every ounce of strength and moved her from the wooden twin sized bed to the spacious living room floor. For a 98-pound lady, she was pretty heavy.

We laid her down as the 9-1-1 operator instructed me to perform CPR. I repeated that she had a DNR but she did not care. My father looked at me. His eyes and mouth, “Please, keep her alive, I’m not ready.” My heart was torn between hurting her soulless body and keeping my father at ease. I obliged. Her ribs cracked at the first and only pump to the chest I made. The sound of empty water bottle shrinking and scrunching dramatically as the last drop swims toward the back of your esophagus.

She wore a light blue night gown that my mother had bought her to make changing her diapers easier. I had grey sweats, black pumas and a red sweater I bought for Valentine’s day. My mother wore a stripped black and white t-shirt with blue sweat pants. My father changed after the paramedics arrived; blue plaid button-up. Black dressing pants and Dockers.

Her name was Maria Trinidad Del Castillo Lepe.

A legend.

1926 - 2020