A year of losses

In a recent phone conversation with my husband, he said, in a quiet voice: "This has been a year of losses." Losses, or near losses, indeed. A year that, even before it started, was already marked by the loss of my abuelita and then of Rusty and then the news that my father might be next. And my husband has also dealt with losses and near losses in his own family.

Today, I return home to Ohio where my husband awaits so that we can try to salvage the summer now that my dad is doing so well and I'm not immediately needed here in Puerto Rico. Hopefully, and this is my fervent prayer, there will be more tranquilidad in our lives for a while. Last night, I made the pledge that I would make the most of the rest of this year. Life is short and unpredictable and every single minute counts. Nothing should be taken for granted. I already knew that but it's good to remind myself so that I don't get caught up in petty frettings that mean nothing in the larger scale of things.

On Monday, my mom and I went to my abuelita's home (pictured above) where I eventually met some mudanceros (moving men). The house has been sold, and as inheritance, my abuelita left me her bedroom set, made of Puerto Rican wood by Puerto Rican artisans more than 80 years ago, and I had to move it to a nearby storage facility until my husband and I figure out how and when to get it to Ohio once we have a home to put it in.

The bedroom set, which is in pretty good shape, includes a double bed with headboard and footboard, a chest of drawers (where my abuelo used to hide bubble gum in the very top drawer that I could never reach), an armoire (which still smells of my abuela's perfume), and a coqueta (or vanity), complete with its little bench and large, antique mirror. All of it is made of dark, lustrous wood, which hasn't lost its shine in all these years.

Precisely because this has been such a year of losses and near-losses, I didn't want to part with it, even if that would've been the most convenient thing to do. But love isn't about convenience, and my abuela wanted me to have that set and I wanted to oblige her, especially because it's part of my history, too, in more ways than one.

It was sad walking into the now near empty house, with its overgrown yard which, in life, my grandmother had always insisted on keeping pristinely manicured. Her beloved pink roses are in dire need of attention, as are her margaritas africanas, or Gerbera daisies, which were her pride and joy. Inside, the house was mostly vacant except for the bedroom set. I was thrilled when my mother found my abuela's trademark black paraguas (umbrella; or, literally, "stop-the-waters"), whose edges are trimmed with shinny, silver tips. I always remember my grandmother carrying that umbrella on her many walks to town (she never used taxi cabs, preferring to walk miles and miles to do her shopping, like the country girl that she was).

I spent many days of my life in that humble house, and many hours seated with her in that front porch, chatting about anything and everything, speaking louder and louder as she got older and deafer. On Monday, I even saw the big, brown lagartijo, or lizard, that she accused of nipping at her heels when she sat on her favorite chair. I thought she was imagining things until I sat on the same chair once, and felt a nip on my heel and there was the large, brown lagartijo eyeing me with its beady eyes, challenging me to do something about his trespass. I want to think that the big, brown lagartijo that we met when my mom and I entered the porch that day, and which didn't show signs of concern, was the very same one.

The bedroom set, along with the sewing machine my abuela also left me, was eventually secured in an excellent storage facility and in some future day will make its way to our next home, where I will find someone who can repair the cracks in the wood (there are many Amish woodworkers in Ohio so maybe one can help with this) and get the set back to its original glory, or as close as possible.

I guess that, as long as we take something, and I don't mean materially, from what we lose, or almost lose, then the loss is less absolute and devastating. Todo pasa y todo queda, said the poet, and he couldn't have been more right. Things may be lost because of the ravages of time, but, as long as we remain, what they meant and why they mattered remains with us.