This one is a little long, I apologize for that... I write these to also be able to look back on them and remember notable moments... This was one of those...
I continue to write about my father’s passing,
Not because I am looking for sympathy,
But because I appreciate death…
what it means, what it represents and what it teaches me about life.
Friday, I took my sister’s and my father to be “buried” in La Planecie.
It was once again, one of those events that my father and I spoke about on countless occasions actually occurring.
Most cemeteries in Peru are not like they are in the US. They are a concrete structure in a large building always adjacent to a church. The 10’ wide corridors stretching out into the darkness like the lower labyrinth of an ancient library… with rows forking off the main artery and names static and forever engraved from floor to ceiling.
It was time for my sisters and my father to rest in peace.
Ana died in 1978 and Dee in 1981. For nearly 40 years Ana and then Dee have been traveling from dark closet to dark closet to night table, keeping my mother company. When my mother moved into her most recent nursing home, she wouldn’t let up until my sister’s ashes joined her.
At this point, my mother is no longer aware of the ashes… she lives in the moment… and the memory of my sisters is gone from her mind, though the love for them, I am convinced, still lives in her heart.
After my father was cremated last Friday, I took his ashes home. The next day I picked up my sisters, and all 4 of us shared my mother’s room for the balance of the week. Years ago, sleeping in an empty house with three sets of ashes by my side would have bothered me… these days for whatever reason, I felt grateful to have them near me.
I needed to resolve their whereabouts before leaving to return to the states. It made sense to me to put them in their final resting place, so that they can wait for my mother in peace.
I dressed up on Friday and packed up the family 😉 In a very real, but strange way, I was sad to see them leave. I was sad not to continue to share a room with them… sad to leave them.
We arrived at the cemetery early and I carried them to the second floor, where I met an older man in a dirty construction outfit. The color of his worn uniform, matched the color of his skin, matched the color of the walls.
I asked him, “Where is Father Giovanni?”
“You must be the 4 o’clock”, he said in a raspy, worn but warm and caring voice… “You are in chapel 4, row F, cubbie 2B, but put the ashes on the bench in the chapel. Father Giovanni comes out exactly on time. Just wait for him.”
It was one of those days in Lima where the overcast sky reached down between the trees and touched the ground. The grayness of the sky seemed to blend into the road and into the buildings… It was chilly… The only warmth I could feel came from the old workers eyes…
I put my sisters and my father on the bench and walked the massive hallways looking at the names.
I found row F, a forklift awaited with an open dark cement hole opened a few feet above my head on the left. This must be the place.
“The first one that dies, between your mother and me, gets cremated,” I remember my father saying, “then those three ashes will go into the coffin of the final one who dies. All four of us will be buried in my ‘plot’”
We never really talked about what would happen with my body / ashes the day I die. It was somehow a forgone conclusion that I would figure out my own situation… It’s the story of my life 😉
I felt no disrespect by his clarity and my absence in his plans, but it did make me feel lonely… separate… from our cozy family of 5 that lasted such a short window.
I will figure out my own plan…
So, I walked around the cemetery and noticed that NO SPACE had 4 names on it. In fact, the vast majority had one name, a few had two… I couldn’t stop smiling… My father was always looking for ways to save money… always and forever… and now to be memorialized on the walls of ‘La Planecie’ cemetery for the world to ponder. I can imagine my father thinking, “why do I need to buy four spaces, or two, when I can buy just one?”
My father always like to call the shots. He always wanted us nearby.
Maybe controlling his final resting place, gave him a peace and a comfort that he could never achieve in real life… as my sisters condition, lives, deaths and even my mother’s life had all been far outside his circle of control…
Perhaps, leaving me out of the plot was some kind of his eternal acknowledgement that my life was mine to live… and my will to live it on my terms was understood.
I wasn’t alone in the cemetery. I had come with my father’s sister, my aunt. And her ‘kids’ were starting to arrive. Everyone was texting about traffic and concerned they might miss the prompt start.
A few minutes before 4, my mother’s sister arrived with her daughter… then her son. Soon, there were 9 or 10 of us…
This cemetery is a resting place for the family. Both my aunts’ husbands are buried there, and many aunts and uncles, and my grandmother. Everyone made a quick visit to their loved ones, turning the light switch on the dark hallways when they entered and off when they left.
The place felt cold in temperature and in mood… it wasn’t a place you’d want to linger, I thought, much less rest in forever. But, this is the place my father chose, and I for one, wasn’t going to take this very specific and meaningful desire away from him.
He wanted to be there for the world to see.
Nestor Miguel “Tito” Benavides del Solar
4-4-28, 2-9-17
would be resting with Ana Maria Benavides Banchero and Delia Maria Benavides Banchero.
The whole world would see my father, eventually with his wife, and forever with his daughters… together. It meant a lot to him. And, I can understand why.
At 4 the priest came in… a tall and formal figure, who started speaking and praying at the same time. He conveyed his often shared words and looked at the urns of my sisters to find their names. My father’s urn had no name, so he looked up at me with a “please fill in the blank” stare as he went about his prayer. The old worker stood by his side with the holy water, his head bowed and his hands together.
The priest’s words were thoughtful and appropriate, though generic, I thought. But, death for this priest, I felt, was business as usual.
We then were instructed to bring my father and sisters to their final “construction site”. My aunt carried my father, and my two cousins carried my sisters.
My mother's absence at the burial was not spoken about, but was on my mind. I don't think "not knowing" or "not realizing" what is happening around you is "better for her" as so many people suggest. I don't think any of us would choose the option of not knowing when those closest to us had died.... or would choose not to be able to comprehend or to grieve or to be included... Her condition is what it IS, but I don't think its for the better or the worse...
And, I wondered how she would have felt putting the ashes away forever behind the marble walls.
I wasn’t sad yet… I was grateful for my cousins and my aunts… for these familiar and loving people who had always made me feel so very loved and had always been there for me in all times of sorrow… were with me again now.
The thought of being the last of the “5” Benavides standing, or at least of sound mind and body, was not the thought that filled my mind… I was much more aware of what a beautiful family I had… and trying to be mindful of my aunt’s sadness before mine.
We walked to the forklift and placed the urns on the pallet on the forks. On the pallet was also a concrete slab that I figured would be used to seal the hole.
The priest prayed again and tears did start to flow. I was sad that I would never hold the urns again… while a far cry from the warm bodies and souls that I used to love… I had grown attached to these urns… I really had. The thought of never being able to look at the ashes made their deaths more final than I had ever felt them.
I realize this is nuts. My sisters have been gone forever. I often say they died, “a lifetime ago”, and yet, on Friday I felt like they were being taken away from me again… and this time, really forever… and, they were taking my father with them this time…
When the priest started praying the “our father” one final time, the old worker’s voice boomed, clearly and passionately… He was everywhere in the background, and on this prayer we were all following his lead.
How many times has this man prayed with people, I thought.
He has probably worked here for 30 or 40 years or more. He very well may have been here my entire lifetime…
He is likely in his 70s… he probably makes a couple of hundred dollars per month… and he seems so very much at peace. The overwhelming institutional flavor of this place seemed to disappear around the clarity of this man’s purpose.
The prayer was over and the old man shuffled onto the folklift. The priest managed the controls and lifted the old man up to the open hole. He placed the urns in the large concrete hole and then hoisted the large concrete slab with my handwriting in chalk with my sisters and father’s names temporarily escribed… until the marble is carved.
The man worked expeditiously, and put more concrete around the slab. The rest of us praying repeatedly.
The priest brought down the forks – the slab with the white chalk remained above our heads. My father and sisters now hidden behind these walls. The old man came down with them.
The priest looked at his watch and said, “We need to go, we have a 4:30 on the fourth level.”
Before he was done saying it, the old man’s feet where already literally shuffling off ahead of everyone rushing to the next engagement, the priest not far behind.
The family walked out of the halls into the grey day and huddled around. I came with my hands full, and I was leaving with my heart a little emptier.
Still, I felt grateful.
In our huddle, I told my family, “Thank you for always being with me… for always loving my parents… for being my cousins, my brothers and my sisters. I am never alone – because you are always with me.”
Grateful… I felt deeply grateful…
Tony Robbins words came to mind… gratitude and anger can’t coexist.
I thought to myself, gratitude and sadness, don’t coexist very well either.
Gratitude keeps winning…
We kissed and hugged and all split into various cars – ready to head on to the next activity of the day.
And, just like that… the countless conversations with my father about his final resting place were real and over. There would be no more conversations. At least not outside of my own head. Now, I simply had to make the decisions and execute them.
We would never again need to disagree.
Just like that, my sisters and father would simply be names on a wall.
Just like that, my sisters would no longer wonder around like gypsy’s…
Just like that…
Death is so very final…
So absolute…
And, yet, even in death,
Our image and memory and thus who we are (or were) evolves, as those who loved us, whom we leave behind continue to grow and iterate their relationship with our memory.
Just like that…
We move on to the next activity of the day…
We move on to the next stage of our life…
We move on to the new reality, the new IS, of our moment…
And, I think about the old man…
I think about him…
He was focused and deliberate.
He was purposeful and considerate.
He was on top of every detail, and I suspect knows all that there is to know about this place.
I wondered how many of the remains in this cemetery had been loaded by this man.
His skin, his clothes, his life… blending seamlessly into every part of this place…
I didn’t get his name and that bothered me.
I should have when I first met him.
I should have shaken his hand.
If Jesus was here…
I thought…
He would be this man…
This invisible, dedicated, loving man who seemed to be so very present for this deeply meaningful moment… He wasn’t here for me or for my aunts or cousins…
He was here for my father and for my sisters.
He would be taking care of their remains from here…
And, in a strange way,
He brought me peace…
Our physical remains will lay where we choose…
I get that…
Our impact…
Our purpose…
Our meaning…
Our love…
Those “things”…
Those which we ultimately “are”… and “were”…
They remain distributed throughout the hearts of all whom we’ve known…
Death…
Like life…
Is ABSOLUTE.
It is specific.
It has an IS, a WANT, or a WISH…
Death
is
our
final moment…
in our body…
in harmony,
Nestor