PapiLuis

Rain season again. Wet and wondrous outside.

My grandfather, Luis Cardenas Chavez, died last Saturday from lung cancer. It was a struggle, a mourning, of many months, many of them at my house, at that room up there ↑.

We buried him yesterday, Father’s day here in Mexico. Next Thursday was to be his 85th birthday.

Maybe it was good that his agony ended but, me, all I see is the many meaningful centuries he could have lived. I don’t say that lightly. He had more life and more lives with him than anyone I’ve known and there was at least that much still inside him. He died young. Never without a reason to wake up every morning, today he won’t.

And I feel like I have to say it because only pleasantries and comforting lies were spoken thick and fast at his most Catholic funeral: he’s dead, absolutely annihilated, choked, nothing left of him. We’ve been robbed, someone precious and irreplaceable has been taken from us, for no reason at all, taken and shattered, and we are never getting him back. ^ELZR

We never wrote down his memories as we both once planned. ^ELZR Always thought there would be a better time later. There wasn’t. What most disappointed me though was myself and how I reacted to his sickness. Or rather, how I not reacted, how I retracted. Oh I helped along, but I did not fight, didn’t read, didn’t research. I never understood his sickness, his ailments, his medicine. It was the scientific, idealistic, techno-utopian thing to do and I left it undone, I muddled thru.

But, to my horror, on top and despite all the sadness, all the frustration, all the personal disappointment, there’s Christina^WP^-frantic, exhilarating sensafreedom thru and thru. At last. Just the six of us.

I felt so trapped in this house for so long. So unhappily submerged in rude relatives that diluted my family in their toxic, stupid undertows. Some days ago I realized sadly it would never be my home again. It was just a place all of a sudden. It’s time to go.

But for now I’m here. And I’m happy to. And it’s rain season again. Wet and wondrous outside.

He was a good man.