I want to express my heartfelt appreciation and thanks to Nezua and Man Eegee for guest blogging while I was away on family matters. Although I have never met them, nor personally communicated with them other than through email and blog comments, it is wonderful to know there are people out there willing to lend a hand during times like these.

As some of you have read, mi abuelita passed away. She was 98 years old when she died. She was alive to witness the births of 17 grandchildren, 20 great grandchildren and 2 great great grandchildren. During the last couple of years, her Alzheimer’s had already taken its toll. Since her operation last year, she was bed ridden ever since. A year has gone by since and it seems she has finally let go. She held on through everything for about a year, and from what I was told, sometime around 2:30AM, Sunday morning, she passed away. Even though I knew it was just a matter of time, it still hurts. I helped look after her the last few years of her life and I’m going to miss her feistiness and strong will.

I guess it is hard on me because while my parents were going to college, my sister, and I would spend every summer with my grandparents. Life is somewhat funny, really. We oftentimes remember a person’s bad qualities rather than their positives. It is not until either they are gone out of lives, by walking out of our lives or passing away, we remember the influence they had on our lives, with each person telling their own version. There are so many vivid memories and some many things I really never told her thank you. I can vividly remember how every morning like clockwork, she would wake up at 5:30 in the morning and start cooking breakfast. It was always the same thing, but it was something I never mind having. She would make famous homemade flour tortillas and chorizo. Once in a while, she would make oatmeal but always with her famous flour tortillas. I believe this is the reason why I too wake up at 5:30. If it wasn’t for her, I believe I might have lost my ability to understand Spanish. During her funeral, I still learned several things I really never knew about her. I had learned she took driver’s education when she was already a senior citizen. I also learned she also was studying for her GED as a senior citizen. Although she did not succeed, that did not stop her from learning on her own through other means. It is little things that I regret not getting to know my grandmother a little more.

Letting go of someone you love is perhaps one of the hardest things we go through in life. Whether it is losing someone in a relationship or someone to death, the loss feels the same regardless of how or why it happens. The truth is, a little piece of you is gone and only time will heal heal those wounds. I have never talked about my faith on this blog, not because I feel I need to hide my faith, but it is an internal struggle I continue to have because many of my questions continue to go unanswered. Until recently after coming across this site, CrossLeft.org, this probably had to do with the fact how hard it was for me to find a safe haven where I feel safe in expressing my views, my doubts, and my confusions. During college, I did explore other faiths, including Islam. As much as I entered different dominations and faiths, however, my grandmother’s strong faith in Catholicism has and still has an effect on me. I still consider myself a Catholic, however; I consider myself to be spiritual than religious. Now that my grandmother has passed away, I once again, am starting to question my faith and the Catholic Church.

The message that was being told us by the priest at the funeral service as an explanation for her passing, we are “born to die.” In theological terms, we are saved through the death of Jesus Christ - He was born to die. In bringing us to glory, God had Jesus so He could be crucified and then rise from the dead, forgive us of our sin and assure us a place in heaven if just believe (John 1:12). When you look at it, it seems the priest was saying we should be lucky and thank God for loaning my grandmother to us, because the purpose of life is to be born to die, at which time her opportunity to learn and to grow over time will either be rewarded or punished when she dies. My grandmother had served her purpose she had died. Is this a simplistic way of looking at it?

Sadly, at this point, I still don’t know the answer to that question. It is hard to believe that we can sit here allow people to continue to die of hunger and thirst, disease and poverty, in an age of plenty and unbridled consumerism. Or allow people to remain enslaved, exploited and stripped of their dignity just to maximize the company’s profit. How can people continue to turn a blind eye to victims of racial and religious hatred, hampered by intolerance and discrimination, and by political interference and physical or moral coercion with regard to the free profession of their faith. How can we not hear, from the very depths of this humanity, at once joyful and anguished, a heart-rending cry for help? Better yet, a very much larger question: How much of this we are willing to look at and then turn away from without doing something about it? But a much deeper question: How can God allow this occur?

Despite the many technological advances, our humanity continues to lag behind. I know I have my faults, made my mistakes and hopefully learned from them. I’m willing to try and that’s all that I can ask of myself right now. And as for mi abuelita, she is in a far better place and hopefully reunited with mi abuelito. All I can wish for, I am making them proud.

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