Veronica
December 10, 2006
I was eleven when she died. It was a cold autumn day when we said our last goodbye to her. People would come into the house and in the room where she lay, at peace, at last. A hushed silence accompanied them everywhere. Our next door neighbor, an elderly plump woman with a red face, was crying in a corner, soon to be comforted by another one and I watched them all, bewildered, not understanding.
“She is not dead, she’s only sleeping” a round faced woman told me with a sad smile on her lips and this only added to my confusion. Her lie didn’t make me feel better. I hated her for saying it.
I went inside to look at her as she lay in the simple wooden coffin, made huge by the small crowded room. I stopped a few paces away, didn’t dare go any closer. It scared me. Two thin yellow candles burned by her head, flickering as people passed back and forth, the hot wax dripping. They wore black and walked everywhere, silently, slowly, handkerchiefs pressed to their faces, mopping their tears. Every now and then a loud sob would escape someone’s lips…..
Next thing I remember was standing outside, my mother hanging on my right arm, her face buried in my shoulder, crying and not being able to stop. My father would look at us from a distance with a frown on his face, not seeming to understand the pain and that made it all worse. I shivered in the cold day made even colder by the sadness inside me. The priest was saying the words of the ceremony, a beautiful sad song, his pale blue robe glinting in the feeble rays of the sun.
The small yard was filled with relatives, people of all ages who came to see her one last time. My aunt was the closest to the coffin, so close she could almost touch it. She cried loudly and whispered words that were hard to understand. Someone’s child was next to her, a little girl of perhaps four, and she looked up at the woman who couldn’t hide her grief.
My grandfather stood on one side, at the head of the coffin, alone, his head bobbing slowly back and forth and his face painted with the deepest grief I’ve ever seen. No tears dripped from his eyes, only that look of loss and loneliness. What am I to do now that she’s gone? said that look.
I watched her lifeless body, not being able to tear my eyes away, not crying, only staring for what seemed like an eternity. The cold wind bit into my hands but I didn’t care.
Four men carried her coffin to the church up on the small hill. My uncle, tall and strong was one of them.
They put ropes under the wooden box and lowered her into the ground. The cruel sound of earth being thrown on the coffin seemed loud to my ears and I started crying, at last. People came near the open mouth of the grave and more handfuls of dirt were dropped on top of her and I cried. I cried for all the times she hugged me and all the cakes that she made and I ate and all the prayers that she taught me. And I was in a sea of sadness.
It was the last time I would see her and I knew it. But I was wrong, for I still see her with my childhood eyes. She is with me, a part of me and the wind sometimes whispers her name in my ear like a secret. Veronica, Veronica, it says, do you remember her? I remember, I loved her very much and still do, even though she is no more for many years now.
I conjure up her image and it comes to me, clear and unaltered by the passing of time: her hands, old and worn by the hard work she did in the fields, her long silver hair gathered in a braid and wound around her head like a small crown, her brown eyes full of kindness and her face, so dear to me and wrinkled and soft. She smelled of sugared donuts and freshly baked bread and of kindness, immeasurable. I miss you, grandmother.
We all have stories to tell. Sometimes we bring them forth and sometimes we keep them buried. Here are my stories. I hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. 
