Fall 2017. I’m in my first semester at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and it’s going about the same way my first kiss went: not good. I needed a break, some sort of respite from the inadequacy I felt.
Thanksgiving came around and I returned home a shell of myself. I entered the front door sullen from being overworked and a lack of friends, and was immediately coiled into a hug like a snake hunting its prey. That’s how my aunt operated. She loved hard.
My immediate family includes my mother, grandmother and sister. The final member of this group was my aunt Maria, aka “Lolo.” Lolo and my grandmother emigrated to the US from Cuba all by themselves when they were just teenagers. Lolo was like a third mother, behind my mom and grandma.
She came with me to the batting cages, picked me up from school and attended every piano recital she could. She was this tiny woman, but had a palpable presence at every single family outing. We often joked that she was like Marlon Brando in The Godfather, sitting at the head of the table at big family events.
My sister, mother, grandmother and I had a special bond with her, though. Every Thanksgiving, we would have our big meal, then attend a movie together. The movie of Thanksgiving 2017? Coco.
I love the arts, especially movies. But when I was 18, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about an animated movie. I was a snot-nosed teenager who didn’t want to get dragged anywhere. When I saw Coco though, it was a different story. The pulsating colors, childlike innocence and portal to a culture I’ve never known, but felt connected to, the film took me through were stunning. But more importantly, they put huge smiles on the faces of my aunt and grandmother.
Maybe 10 or so minutes into the movie, I looked over and saw Lolo grinning from ear to ear as the main character sang for the first time. I kept watching and watching the two of them. Of course I’d seen them happy before, but this was different. They looked like wide-eyed kids in Cuba again. I couldn’t stop looking at their awestruck faces. Just before the climax of the film, one of the main characters sings a lullaby called “Remember Me (Lullaby)” to his daughter. Gael García Bernal sings:
“Remember me though I have to say goodbye / Remember me, don’t let it make you cry… Know that I’m with you the only way that I can be / Until you’re in my arms again, remember me.”
It was the first and only time I ever saw Lolo’s eyes well up and tears run down her cheeks.
That was the last moment I can remember her appearing healthy at a family outing of ours. All my life, I saw her as this titan of a woman. Small, but deceptively full of strength and energy.
In January 2018 she wound up in hospice care. No one in the room moved a muscle or made a sound. There was only the repetitive droning of her struggling breath. It’s a sound I’d never heard before.
It made me want to cry, but it would have broken my grandmother’s heart if I did, so I waited. I waited, and waited and waited. I wasn’t in the room long, but it felt like an eternity. It kept wanting to come out, but I forced it down. Once my mom and I got to our car though, a deluge of tears flowed from my eyes and I cried like I never have before.
The past two years have proved that at any moment, we can lose someone we love; that’s why I cherish the moment in the movie theater. Lolo could’ve done anything in her last healthy moments, but she decided to see a movie with me.
Each time I hear “Remember Me (Lullaby),” it feels like I’m 10-years-old again. Ten years old, sitting in my grandma’s Nissan Versa at our local Dairy Queen, talking with her and Lolo about my baseball game from earlier in the day, as I feel the cold chill of chocolate soft serve dripping down my hand. Grief isn’t the emotional life I associate with Lolo’s last moments. It’s gratitude.
