Thursday, June 24, 2021

Death and Distance

It’s about five in the morning Montana time. The sun is out though not yet shining as brightly as I hope it will the rest of the day. I am in bed. I hear the familiar, rhythmic buzz of my phone. A call is coming in. Someone back home on the East Coast. Someone who doesn’t know where I am. Not that it matters. I’ll only be here a week. I hope I keep my sleep pattern just as it is until I return.

It is a family friend calling. My uncle in Cuba passed away in the night. My mother’s brother. My mom is still sleeping. That’s good. She needs her rest with all she’s been through. The friend asks if she should wake mom and tell her the news or would I like to tell her. I think this kind of news should be delivered in person whenever possible.

I sent a message to my cousin in Cuba, offering her my condolences for the death of her father. She called me a few minutes later. We chat and I again offer my sympathies. My wife is awake now and I tell her what has happened while we were sleeping. The family friend calls a few minutes later to let me know she has spoken with my mom. I call her and she is, understandably, upset. I tell her to stay calm and to not drive or stress herself out. She tells me that if the initial shock didn’t kill her, none of this will. Her little brother is dead. She has to tell her big sister, my aunt.

The news of my uncle’s death passed from Cuba to Hialeah, Florida, to West Yellowstone, Montana, back to Hialeah, to my mother, who was right next to the family friend who called me with the news in the first place. In the meantime, I spoke to my cousin, who is about two thousand miles away but only about three hundred miles away from my mother, who will eventually call her sister who is about ten miles away in Pembroke Pines, Florida.

Because my uncle died in Cuba, we will not be able to attend his funeral. We will not get together and share memories and laugh and cry the way one does to cope with the loss. We will talk or text. We may receive pictures but we will not hear the music or the sobs. Our shoulders will remain dry as we will not be able to offer them to comfort a relative. We will each grieve our own grief and cry our own tears. Our pain will be more personal. The loss will not be shared, but divided. Each of us will carry our own piece of it.




Adolfo Jimenez is an author, poet, and blogger. He lives in Hollywood, Florida. He has published ten books, which you can find here.

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