What can you do now?
What's your story? That story you carry in you and just, blurt, to Uber driver. Barbers. Tattoo artists. People you pay to engage with you. That's who I have left. I was a foster child, without family. That's okay, she said. I have family to spare. Take them. Please. I'm Mexican and I have ten thousand cousins, she said. Take half.
They didn't stick around. She died a year ago and at first, they were all over me. Primo, they called me. Tio. Hermano. Like the fosterling I was, they enfolded me in the love that they have always known. At first. Then, the weight of death wore them down. I am a walking reminder that, there but for the grace of God go they. Her death wasn't expected. It was too soon. She was 33. It flew in the face of what is supposed to happen.
And so, they faded. But not on purpose, I say to myself in a home full of silence. This is hard to face. Death. Mortality. The fragility of the things we love. The people we love. So I don't blame them. Much. It's hard to face that these things can and do happen to people you know and love. So, I don't hold this distance against them.
My wife had a saying: La vida es prestada, gozala. En tacones y en chinga. Life is only lent to you, celebrate it. In heels and without giving a fuck. She said that alot. So much that I bought her Christian Louboutin heels for an anniversary. And we work in non profits, this was a big deal. 'Entierame en ellos pendejo'. Bury me in these, fucker.
I did.
Have you ever seen a conservative priest in Mexico bless a pair of stiletto heels? He scattered holy water on her red bottoms, her rebozo, her favorite lighter. Después de la vida, nos espera el Señor. He said. What about us? We wait every day until then.
Ponte las pilas, she would say. Isn't that what we do? We don't know what this day brings us but we have no choice but to deal with it. You and I, we're survivors. All of us, we are canny and cunning and clever. She would say that the fact that you live today is a miracle. You survived everything that tried to kill you, she would say.
What do I do? What do you do? How do you conquer the next day?
Tell us.