An Obituary of Sorts
I don’t really like talking about death.
Well, that’s not true. I frequently joke that I wish I was dead, have lengthy discussions about suicidal ideation (that have decreased ever since I started therapy and medication), and watch films that are full of dead bodies from start to finish.
But that’s all, sort of, death in the abstract. I don’t really like talking about or dealing with death in its concrete form, particularly when it’s personally linked to me. I always joke that I sort of relate to the Midsommar cult in their view of death; there’s a time for growing up and there’s a time for dying. All of us are going to get there, no matter how horrifying it seems, so we might as well accept and embrace it as something to be celebrated.
When my father died years ago, I was the one who had to sprint upstairs in a haze of sleep after being told by my mother that he was laying on the floor and not moving. I have vivid memories of the panic of that morning, the lighting in the apartment that day, the voice that I had to listen to on the phone explaining how to properly do CPR and check for a pulse, the feeling of a dead body against my hands and lips, the sound of bones cracking, the sight of my mother trying not to completely break down. It’s not something you’re ever prepared for, not even when you’re in your early twenties and think you’re mature enough to handle anything.
As I approach thirty now, I realize I’m not mature enough to handle most things, and probably never will be, despite being told I’m “adulting” better than I used to. But today I’m dealing with the loss of another family member, so, as I joked on Twitter, I’m going to do what every writer does to deal with their feelings: write a personal essay.
—
It’s hard to explain some of my family relationships. Latin families are often sprawling and refer to each other by closer terms than are actually true. In this case, it’s Jesus Brito; or Chucho, or Jay, or “Papi”, the latter names I best knew him by and called him at various points in my life. My father had a cousin named Teresa (or Tete, or “Mama”, the names I call her) and they grew up together like they were siblings. As Mama jokes, “El era mi chaperona hasta que me casé.” (“He was my chaperone until I got married.”) She was married to Papi in the US after dating who knows how long, had three kids, and lived here in Miami, only about a fifteen minute drive from where I lived with my father, mother, and sister, for most of my life.
I’ve gone back and forth on describing this relationship a lot; sometimes I’ll say “uncle/aunt” and sometimes “grandfather/grandmother”, never really correcting anyone or arguing with any label because, ultimately, they’re my family. And, more than that, they’re incredibly close family. While my parents worked, Mama y Papi were the two people who helped raise me like I was their actual child or grandchild. I have fond memories of playing with puzzles, going on trips to Disney World, going to the sports club and watching him play squash, jumping on the trampoline outside, getting picked up from school, and even going to the office with Papi, where I’d usually just play computer games while a ton of strangers tried talking to me.
It’s funny, now, decades later, that I sit with some of those same strangers as co-workers, some closer than others. Jay, as everyone at the office called him, helped make the company I work at what it is. I complain a lot about my job and keep it quiet from friends because, after all, it’s a desk job that isn’t where my true passions lie, but it is amazing to know that someone in my family helped create a company that has stayed open for many years and built it into what it is today. (And, before going on, I have to joke: yes, I only have health insurance because nepotism got me a temp gig at an engineering company and I managed to prove myself mildly useful enough to keep around and hire full time.)
Though I have a few memories from my childhood that were great with Mama y Papi, most of my memories of Papi exist in the space of the last ten years. It’s mostly office place stuff and playful arguments and family reunions for holidays. Any time I had to drive him somewhere, he’d complain the entire way there, despite the fact that letting him drive was the most anxiety-inducing experience any human being would ever face. The man held onto the world’s worst flip phone for ages and we’d yell at him in the office for not upgrading.
He was always getting into political arguments in our (largely conservative) office space because he was a liberal. Sometimes the other Cubans would call him a bad Cuban or say he was just repeating anything he heard on CNN or MSNBC (which, he probably was, but they’re just repeating whatever they saw on FOX News, so pot calling kettle). We joked a lot about how he probably wrecked his computer from porn viruses or how he probably had a thing for feet because we’d catch him looking at someone’s. We’d be amused when he’d ramble on and then fall asleep in a chair. His presence made the workplace more fun, not just because he was my family, but because he was family to all of the people in the office. It made things feel a little homier.
A few months ago we had to empty out his office because he hadn’t been back in a while due to declining health and we boxed up some of his personal effects. I have three boxes sitting in my cubicle (none of them including the pin-up swimsuit model posters we howled with laughter at actually finding) of family photos and other things that I haven’t been able to take back home yet. Or not haven’t, but not wanted to. Wanting to do that would mean fully accepting that he’s beyond his return. Every week I’d have someone ask me how he’s doing, to which I just had to respond, “He’s, y’know, there.” Sometimes he remembered things just fine, sometimes he didn’t.
I am lucky enough where every time I went he still remembered me. The last time we actually talked, he still remembered the office, still remembered people who worked with him and some of their kids, and still said that he’d be coming into the office next week, despite not really having left the bed for a week. That moment kind of broke me, and I realized that was the moment I had to accept things weren’t going to get better.
When I went this Friday, he didn’t talk, he didn’t move, he was barely breathing. I couldn’t talk to him, even though my family wanted me to. I instead played with the dog, talked to Mama about memories and her health and cried a little, bought her a pair of Minnie Mouse jeans that I got from Hot Topic that she loved because we thought she could use something positive in the face of her husband approaching death, talked with my cousins and my sister as casually as possible to offer an air of relief, and then left.
Last night, or this morning, at 3:05 a.m. (how very Miami, no?), I got a call from my mother saying he’d passed away. I took it fairly calmly, after all, I knew it was coming. As sad as I am to lose him, I’m happier that he isn’t suffering, that he isn’t laying around unable to argue with the people he loved arguing with, that he will be fondly remembered by a ton of people who knew him and lived with him and laughed with him and fought with him and loved him.
I don’t know why I’m writing this, I don’t know if I was always the perfect nephew or grandson or whatever, I don’t know if my jokes are helpful or not, but I just wanted to say some words about someone I loved who is one of the reasons I am exactly who I am today. Someone who took care of me, someone who brought me joy as a child, someone who had conversations with men I dated (instead of threatening to kick me out of my home like my father did), someone who gave me some semblance of stability as an adult, someone who loved me.
R.I.P. Papi
