Strong as an Oak - As Liz (classic book list TXT) 📗

for the Lord hath heard my weeping.

The Lord hath heard my supplication; the Lord will receive my prayer…”

Then Celine laid down at the pew and cried.

Celine’s uncle Steven thought it was best to take Celine back home so she said her final goodbye numbed by the pain. Wanting to see her alone and talk to her, but there was no privacy the family was big and everybody had to share their chance so she swallowed her words and gave her a final kiss.

 

 That night Celine couldn’t sleep, that night after they took her off the life support, her grandma passed away.

That night the struggle began the family had always been poor and penniless, they had no money for the internment except 2000 dollars that Celine’s somewhat well doing aunt Julie was able to give. Everybody looked at Celine worriedly as they each pile all the money they could provide to not more than 600 dollars. Celine felt a brick of a load on her back, everybody looked at her because she was their only hope the only member of the Mormon Church that afternoon she cried and begged the members of the newly joined Mormon congregation to help her. It took 6 days of grandma in the funeral parlor waiting but they helped the family with open arms. Grandma was a member of their church to but since she was sick most of the time she couldn’t attend services. 

That time, the uncle told us the story of how grandma collapsed in the supermarket, where she was buying some lunch after picking up her meds, and how people froze in shock not knowing what to do. The manager of the supermarket wanted no part in the situation and asked the security guards to take her out of the supermarket and into the front of the supermarket. There they laid her on the pavement while my uncle called the paramedics since nobody did. Then he struggled with CPR since nobody knew how to give any. There he struggled for 15 min. Until the paramedics arrive they were only a block away they arrived calmly as if giving up on grandma on the first call. Maybe her delay in treatment made her worse but she had two more heart attacks on the way to the hospital.

The probable cause they said was a blood clot that had reached her lungs, they said and asked if she had fallen, Celine stayed silent but recalled the two weeks earlier her grandma had slipped in the mud while filling a swamp cooler with water after Celine complained it was hot and no one was in the house. She would regret it to this day, so many ifs. She felt so guilty, and no one could take that feeling away. It just that grandma was so active during her life, she had taken many duties from her husband since he lost his leg but as she got older it was harder and she was so stubborn to take a day off, just that little slip that little accident could have taken her away, away from Celine, forever.

Celine went to the Mormon church to give her last respects to her beloved grandma, thinking that nothing would be the same, not knowing what to expect or how she would feel as they handed her a prayer card and a paper announcing the session She wondered if the pain she buried within her would come out through her weakness she feared being like her mom when she lost her dad, Celine’s grandpa, she almost went crazy. Or her uncle when he hurriedly picked them up to go to the hospital. The service began and they led her to a small church gathering, at this gathering where her aunt Julie said a few words of goodbye, but Celine didn’t listen her eyes where focused on the white coffin that laid closed before her. She just couldn’t believe her Grandma was gone lying in that coffin motionless. That her broken breath was no more. That people told her she was home with god, now resting. And Celine thought she was selfish and she didn’t care she wanted her grandma with her no matter what, her eyes focused on the coffin that was moved to another smaller room for a final goodbye service and visitation. At first Celine didn’t know if she wanted to get closed to the open coffin. If she was ready for what she was too see. So she sat and waited a while before she had the guts, looking at the grim family members who only a few months earlier had been joyful and laughing. Celine finally took her turn and she walked to the coffin on wobbling knees. What she saw froze her to the core there was her grandma resting as if asleep, but with a pale face with crudely done makeup that didn’t look like her at all. Celine grabbed her hand it was cold and stiff, not warm like before she couldn’t accept that she wouldn’t see her again. And that this was the last time she would see her and in this way. She couldn’t take it; she headed outside until the service finished and accompanied her cousin. Who was outside too with red eyes. She thought she couldn’t handle it no more, but she still had to attend the burial, the cemetery was far and the whole family followed in their cars the whole length following the white carriage, every time getting closer to the destination, every time, min, her heart sank, and her sister looked at her blankly. Finally the time came to reach the cemetery it was full and there was coldness in the air. Her aunt Sandra cried endlessly, so much she put too much pressure on the coffin stand causing it to tilt fall out of balance and people tried to control her but “she said no leave me alone, in an attitude she had never done before,” and Celine comprehended that though she was in pain she had to hold her own there was no one to console her then, everybody was buried in their own pain. Her grandma’s uncles tried to cheer people up with their music and singing but people stared blankly at them not knowing how to take them. Finally they told everyone to leave while they lowered the coffin deep in the cement filled abyss of a hole.  Celine had a flower which she intended to put on her grandfather’s grave but she mixed up graves and she put the flower in another grave of someone unknown but she didn’t take it back she left it there she felt bad taking it away from that grave.

Celine when she reached her grandma’s house didn’t know what to do, people told her to eat, but she wouldn’t, she had issues before more now, she laid down in her grandmas bed, but she couldn’t sleep, she wanted to feel her grandma their but felt nothing but her heartache. Within the days she thought it was dream and that her grandma would come back and say it was a mistake, she thought she could hear her singular voice, but it was only in the stupor of her pain.

The next afternoon Celine went to see the collage that the Aunt Eliza made with all the album pictures of my grandma and the family, there she saw the best picture of grandma and she waited till no one was around and took it out and put it in her jacket pocket. 

The nights following her grandmas death were terrible, her uncle John filled with pain over the loss, consumed alcohol to relive the pain but it only deepened for in the nights he cried and went to the kitchen looking for her. He begged for her to come back, he begged god to bring her back, he talked to her in the emptiness of the room. “Come back mommy. Come on touch my forehead and tell me everything is going to be okay, come and tuck me in to make sure my feet are covered from the cold. I can’t live without you.”

During the subsequent days months and years, the lovely garden dried and the house began to fall apart ,no longer was it the same .The house felt like an empty nest that the had being abandoned with the grown up chicklings inside. Celine found it hard to visit year after year, and felt threats about talks of throwing down the house and selling the land. Oh if only Celine had the money . could save the house and her uncles but it was a dream. She thought as she again picked up the photo and hugged it. And she could almost hear her grandma say “Be strong like an oak.”           

 

 

Dying Embers

 

                                                       Dying Embers

It’s getting harder to live day by day without her presence; the morning coffee tastes acrid, but the smell…oh the smell of it, in the style of Merida, consumes me into a trance of memories.

 It was one hot afternoon in Valencia, Venezuela, when I carried her away from the crowds. At that moment I could not bear to see her face, instead my eyes strayed into finding the nearest exit. However, for the longest time I only encountered posters on the floor, one of which read “Voz y Voto para la gente.” I could hear the sound of the protesters still yelling in the background. The screams of other victims, the fumes of the tear gas that threatened to choke out my senses with their invisible gasp, and the force of the water that the police were using to expel us from the scene is still very much reminiscent of the day. What is more I could hear the shrill sound of gunfire in the distance, but somehow for me though it was easy to mute my surroundings, yet hard they were to evade.

I could feel her warm blood seeping down my arms, draining her life each second. This in turn exceeded my desperation for I couldn’t find my way out of the horrid mess the more I tried.  I could hear an ambulance at a far distance; but unless I could find it, it offered no consolation to my dire situation.

It took a toll on me to finally be able to muster the courage to look down at her face; and when I did I notice her face was a color of pale, her cascading curls of hair were now matted by the blood around her face, and her luminous hazel eyes were dulling into a somber shade. Seeing her condition made me feel even more frantic in finding a way out of the crowd, the police, and just out of everything. In as much as my mind rattled into incoherent and impossible feats to drive my love out of this hell.

A stout woman came out of nowhere and said the ambulance is at the gate of the municipal hall, and it wouldn’t go any further. I knew exactly were that was and fortunately it was not far so I ran with all my might; seeing the red of the ambulance