Mi más sentido pésame

Cemeterio de San Francisco

My good friend Becky recently came to visit (Becky will talk more about the trip in her upcoming guest blog!), and we went on a lot of walks in my town, and I took her on Piter and my usual route out to the cemetery. Becky and I share a love for cemeteries, so it was fun to walk around and also share with her a part of my everyday. I showed her my host grandpa’s tomb and told her about the parties we often have around his tomb on the anniversary of his death, his birthday, and día de los muertos, and how the whole family will come together and take a day off of work to celebrate him and be together. It has been five years since my host grandpa’s passing, and in my almost-two years of service I have been to a handful of these celebrations and always enjoyed them. I never knew my host grandpa, but they are comforting and my host family speaks of him so fondly. When I told Becky about this we talked about how this is so different from things back home, but it seems in many ways better. It seems like a better way to grieve.

When I got back from my vacation with Becky (we went to a couple places out of my site), I arrived early on Sunday morning. I readied myself for a quiet day of unpacking, napping, and getting ready for the week when my host mom came into my room. She asked me to go with her to the house of her sister’s father-in-law because he had died. Whenever my host mom asks me to do something, I do it. I asked her what clothes would be appropriate, and despite feeling wracked from a 12-hour overnight bus and the temperature reaching somewhere in the 90º’s, I pulled out my black slacks and a nice button-up shirt. I hadn’t been to a wake or funeral in my town before but I had seen the processions walking by my house and walked by the groups of people sitting in chairs outside of the deceased’s home for days. I knew at the very least that this would be a long day.

I walked with my host mom and my host grandma a mere block away from my house to reach the wake. Within the short time it took us to arrive I already felt sweat on my brow and upper lip and my legs felt suffocated with the first time I’d worn pants in months. Outside of the home there were at least 50 people sitting in plastic lawn-chairs under a small temporary awning structure built to offer some cover from the sun. We quietly greeted everyone, some I knew, most I didn’t. As we went to enter the home my host mom held me back to tell me how to give my sympathies in Spanish. “Mi más sentido pésame,” she instructed me, a phrase that can loosely be translated as “feeling the weight” or the pain of those suffering the loss of their loved one, or being their to take the weight and pain. When I entered the house I saw why so many people were sitting outside, as the entire house was filled with mourners, and I was directed to a smaller room next to the main living area.

The room was filled with large and beautiful bouquets of flowers and the closest family members sat along the edges. My host grandma walked in before me so I just followed her lead and waited my turn to give sympathies to the widow and others. In the middle of the room was the casket, open, with a piece of glass laid over the top. I assume the glass has something to do with the embalming practices, as well as the customary two-days the family spends with the deceased in the home. In regular embalming practices the fluids are drained from the body and replaced with chemicals, and it is made sure that the eyes and mouth are shut. However, that is not always how it is done here. In this case, the deceased appeared to be at least partially embalmed, however his mouth was open and filled with cotton, as was his nose, and it appeared as though his eyes were sewn shut.

When it was my turn to give my sympathies, I hugged those sitting closest to the casket and said the words my host mom had told me to. They received my hugs and thanked me sincerely, and I made my exit as many more people had come in behind me. As I was leaving a woman stood over the casket and laid her head down on the glass and sobbed.  

Outside the crowd had grown larger. I was offered a seat right next to the door to the house and I settled in for what I knew would be two-hours of waiting until we moved on to the church. More and more people came and entered the house, returning outside to find a place to wait. Sweat ran down my back and soaked my shirt and I fought off falling asleep as the heat baked all of us in our nice clothes. There were murmurs of quiet conversation, weeping and whaling, and the people kept coming.

In my time in Peru I have been in so many situations that made me uncomfortable or that I felt awkward and unsure of myself. I have found myself in situations in which I had felt like an intruder on a private moment. I have wondered out loud, “what am I doing here?” And somehow at the wake of a person I hardly knew, hours in and not even halfway through its completion, I realized this wasn’t one of those moments. I realized that I no longer have those moments. While this person was a neighbor that I had passed on countless runs, I did not know him well, but I did not feel like I did not belong. It did not bother me to see him in his casket. The community had come together to bear the weight of the loss of a loved one, and I am now a part of that community.

When it came time to move on to the church, to carry the casket and the man out of his home for the last time, there were hundreds of people present. Being a small town the church is only a few blocks from anywhere, so the group walked slowly on to the church following a marching band.

The funeral continued with a mass at the Catholic Church (which was filled to the brim) for another two hours, and then followed by a procession to the cemetery. I handed kleenex to my host mom and host aunt as we exited the church and watched as people clung to the casket, kissing their hands and touching it, and cried as it was carried out. My host mom and host grandmother decided it would be okay to leave at this point although the ceremony would continue on for at least another two hours. 

We parted ways with the group heading to the cemetery and my host mom continued to cry and tell me how the funeral had reminded her of her father's. We stopped at a bodega on the way home and she bought us popsicles and we ate them in silence as we walked home.

It may seem strange to say, but in many ways the wake meant a lot to me. I’m glad my host mom invited me. It immediately put me side-by-side with people in my community and grounded me after returning from vacation, which can be difficult. It gave me an opportunity to participate in a part of life that I often stay away from. It allowed me to realize how much I’ve grown personally, and within my community as an honorary member. It showed me how much my host mom appreciates my presence, even in times of sadness.  In my first months of service I would not have been able to handle a wake or funeral, but I also wouldn’t have been invited.

There are many things about the small Peruvian community I live in that I have come to really appreciate. Yes, it is humble and still developing, but their interconnectedness as a community and willingness to bare the weight of others, to share the load, is one I admire and hope to emulate. Maybe Peruvians are less disconnected and separated from death because they don't have the privilege and opportunity to do so, but their customs are something I would never change. I am humbled and honored to become apart of it.