Summer Trials (From Emilio's Room)

Summer Trials, Sorrow und Death

The roar of the engine and the taking off of the plane were like the endings of one life and the beginning of a new one. My grandfather was dead, and I had to make the journey to Colombia. Family was what was most needed in this time of unexpected crisis, and that familial comfort was exactly what I was going to get out of it. There was more to it, though. The death of my grandfather, having taken place thousands of miles away in China, left me with the feeling of unreality. I was unable to contemplate a life without him and unable to accept that he was really dead.

The airplane’s thunder crashed on as we drove steadily but surly toward our destination. As far as I was concerned, the death of my grandfather had taken place, for all I knew or felt, in an alternate universe; and no matter that we got closer and closer to our final destination, I never felt any closer to the reality of his death.

Hours and hours of travel: for you see, we travelled from Arizona to Houston; and from Houston straight to Cali. When the airplane landed there were shouts from the back of the plane “¡Que viva Colombia!” “¡Que viva!” and then everybody began to applaud. Even I did.

We got all of our suitcases off the carousel and went to go see if my father was there for us yet. I spotted my father first as he waved to us. We all went to him and my uncle hugged him. From there, after we loaded the suitcases into the car, my father drove us in three hours to Armenia. The drive was long, and we all almost met our own fates on that road. Night-time in Colombia is dangerous, especially when there are people willing to put other people’s lives’ in danger the second their truck-tires hit the highway.

At last we stopped at the house of my uncle’s wife’s mother, and there my uncle’s wife, Angélica, stayed the duration of our two week visit, along with their daughter and son, Juliana and Daniel respectively. We moved out all her stuff and gave it to the others to bring in. We sat and enjoyed conversation. The sense of unreality all around me now, though the friendliness of the atmosphere was not dampened.

After the supper, my father drove us to the apartment that had, before his death, belonged to my grandfather. “Fuck. Que lastima que el papá no esté aquí,” said my uncle. He had spoken exactly what I’d been thinking. It was such a shame, I thought, that my grandfather was no longer living in this apartment. When I first came to Colombia, I was nine-years old; even then he was living in that apartment. That place was his sanctuary. It was where a good part of his life had been spent; though now, it was hollow. So hard to imagine in my mind a place where there was once so much happiness was now vacated. It could not bring the same joy it used to, for the man who made the place what it was was no more.

We took our bags and went up the stares and opened the door into my grandfather’s apartment, #302. I felt as though I were invading a sacred space that I had no right to. There, even in the dim light, I knew that everything would be just as he’d left it: Meat in the freezer, condiments in the fridge, spaghetti noodles in the cupboards. His television set still in the corner on top of a shelf. Trinkets, knick-knacks, and souvenirs from his life sat on a higher shelf. The table in the dining area was as he’d left it. Not a thing missing. Except for my grandfather.

We were assigned rooms: My uncle in the small room which seemed to have been converted into a small library, and I in my grandfather’s old room. I walked into that room as I walked into a dream: everything as I’d remembered it. I had travelled once, more recently, to Colombia in June of 2005 and again in February 2006. I had seen my grandfather’s room before, and nothing had been drastically changed between that time and this time: He still had the little dresser on the wall opposite the foot of his bed full of odds and ends. I opened up his closet and there were all his pants, suits, and jackets ready for him, expecting that at any moment he would walk through the door to his room and say, I’ve gotta’ be down to the university to teach in half an hour. I need to get ready now, I’m very late!

The night had been an ordeal in itself, and every breath I took felt as though it were feeding me more of the same unreality that I had found unacceptable, unpalatable.

That night, my uncle and I were hungry, for we hadn’t had any dinner, so we got out some of the pasta and ate that with barely anything, maybe a pat of frozen tomato sauce that we had to melt with the heat of the spaghetti. Still we managed to get by, though we didn’t get to bed until around three o’clock in the morning.

The morning after we arrove, my uncle and I both awoke late. We showered, got dressed and went to go have lunch at Angélica’s parents’ house. I enjoyed the natural scenery. Truly, if there were a place that God had intended to be paradise, it was the city of Armenia. One need not have even been living in the countryside in order to see how beautiful everything was. The sunsets and the tall, rolling hills filled one with a longing known only in dreams. This place was special. This is where people come when they die; a veritable heaven on earth.

I discovered that evening that a Mass that was going to be held on honour of Angélica’s late grandmother at seven that night. After having to wait a time for everybody to be ready, the wives, the children, and my uncle Álvaro, were packed into a car and headed to the small church. I was left to walk there with Angélica’s brother and his wife. We made it just as the Mass was commencing. The sermon was beautiful, and so were the prayers and the singing were exquisite. At the end, the preacher told us to give each other a sign of peace, so we all shook hands and said as we did so, “Peace be with you. Lord be with you.”

Queridos hermanos y Sepúlvedas en general, Emilio me envió esta colaboración para el blog con la intención inicial de traducirla, sin embargo, pienso que debemos disfrutarla en el idioma original, al fin al cabo creo que todos nosotros somos bilingües en mayor o menor medida. La habitación de Emilio:http://tarot86.livejournal.com/6190.html
Diego.