The Brutality of March
Taken at San Juan Capistrano Mission in San Juan Capistrano, CA. March 18, 2023.
My grandmother died Saturday. The 12th year anniversary of my mother’s death was yesterday. Next week my dad turns 60. And here I am, feeling as I am faced with this constant state of mortality wondering how I’ll die.
Will I live a long and healthy life? Or will I be taken away by some awful disease or cancer? Or will be an act of random chaos that brings me to my demise—a mass shooting? Car accident? A gargoyle falls on my head?
Death has been on the brain a lot more. It usually is during this time of year. It’s been a weird few days. It hasn’t quite hit me my grandmother is gone. She’s always been this state of constant in my life. Every time I saw her, she very rarely changed physically—she always looked the same. It was never any surprise to see her, she was always the same ol’, same ol’. If we spoke with her on the phone, she was always joking, jovial, no update to really share. The last few years have been a little different—a reminder she was getting old and that her time on this Earth was timed. Her health was declining, she wasn’t as mobile as she used to be. The last time she visited us, she kept telling my dad she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be around and felt as if the last time she visited California would actually be the last time. My dad chalked it up to her just being down in the dumps, but I guess she knew something the rest of us didn’t.
The last time I spoke to her was a few weeks ago, after she got out of the hospital and put into a skilled nursing facility. She sounded tired, but otherwise was the same woman I knew and loved. I kept the conversation brief, but I asked how she was doing. She asked how me and my brother were, and if we were good. I told her I loved her and I’d talk to her soon. Somewhere in the back of my head, I had a feeling that would be the last conversation I would have with her. I’m glad I was able to say I loved her, and give her the peace of mind that my brother and I were okay, and she didn’t need to worry about us.
Everything about this weekend has felt serendipitous. My friend invited me to go to the San Juan Capistrano Mission not too long after I got the news my grandmother passed. I knew I needed to get out of the house, and was pretty much down for any kind of trip. I didn’t know how cathartic it would be until after. There was a chapel on the premises, like any good mission. The last time I was in a Catholic church was nearly ten years ago when a friend of mine was trying to light a candle for a family friend who had passed and we had the hardest time trying to find a church that did that, so we just stopped by the nearest one and he said a little prayer for them. Before that, the last time was my baptism as a baby which I only know through pictures taken of that day—Me, as a baby, flinging my arms around in my parents’ face as they tried to calm me down before I got the Holy Water. I’m sure all the other Catholics did not appreciate or find my unruly behavior cute or respectful.
Needless to say, Catholicism is not a big part of my life, but it is apart of my life. I don’t think I realized how it’s been kind of background noise that I’ve just learned to tune out. My dad is Catholic by association—he wasn’t raised as a strict Catholic growing up but my grandmother did raise him with Catholic values. On the other hand, my mother was raised a strict Catholic—Communion, Catechism, Mass, church every Sunday and a statue of the Virgin Mary in her closet she would pray to every night. While she remained a believer of God for her entire life, Catholicism never spoke to her. She didn’t like having the fear of God put into her, but rather the love of God. But as they say, you can take the girl out of the Catholic church but you can never take the Catholic church out of the girl. So while we never went to Mass, Sunday services, or even stepped foot onto a Catholic church, we still had iconography in our house. Someone bought my parents a golden crucifix as a wedding present that has always been present in our home. When my parents divorced, my dad ended up with the crucifix and to this day, it hangs in his home like some foreboding figure. When my mother still had it in her possession, her rosary would usually be wrapped around the crucifix but sometimes my mother would place it somewhere else if she got bored with the placement. We had a replicated wood painting of the Last Supper, those small prayer cards with different saints painted on them scattered all over the house. My mother adorned crucifixes around her neck (she had quite a few in her collection).
Needless to say, there was something weird about going into the chapel, yet something so familiar. Any time I step on site of a house of worship, I always wonder if God is going to smite me for being an Atheist hellian. I splashed myself with some Holy Water and walked between the pews, through the chapel, up to the altar, where I was struck by the beauty of everything. These foreboding statues that hung above me, the ornate, gold decor, the raised roof. Everything in there was so…intimidating. It made me feel so small in comparison, a reminder that none of us are better or more holy than God himself. The constant feeling of being judged, it brought up feelings of being a little kid, surrounded by a bunch of big people who could either reward you or punish you. It didn’t surprise me that my mother made the decision to leave the church once she was old enough to make that decision.
My grandmother, on the other hand, was still Catholic to her core. After my grandfather died, she lit a candle for him every day. She started going back to church with her sisters, and getting re-acquainted with God. There was a time where she asked me and my brother why we didn’t believe in God. I always felt awkward having those conversations simply because I don’t think much about my Atheism. I think I’ve been an Atheist since I was a kid. I never had a relationship with God because I never felt like he was there. If anything, I had closer relationships with the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus than God. It’s hard to tell people you love who do believe that I don’t believe in God because I think it’s make believe. Everyone has their own personal relationship with religion, or for some of us, lack there of. My brother and I would be vague in our answers as we tried to change the conversation to anything else to avoid saying, “He’s as real as Santa Claus”.
As I stood before the altar, just in awe, it just felt appropriate to say a prayer, so I kneeled on the tuffet, closed my eyes, clasped my hands together, and prayed for my grandparents and mother. Between my mom and grandmother, somehow they both managed to get me into a church and pray. If an afterlife exists, I’m sure they’re both patting themselves on the back for doing a tag team effort. I told my friend after we left it felt like some odd ball joke being pulled on me from the grave.
Weirdly enough, I think it was exactly what I needed. It was the closest I ever felt to both my mom and grandmother. It was the most I felt connected to my Mexican culture. This was part of me, and has always been apart of me despite my protestations of religion over the years. I’m still not a believer, but there is some appreciation I have towards Catholicism that I don’t think I’ve ever had in my 34 years of living. It only took losing the two most important women in my life to come to that conclusion.