death and all his friends

[Yester during last year’s Dia de los Niños]
Did his blond curls quake
When death came to take
His precious young mind
Was life ever so unkind?
In an instant he’s gone
Like a tiny young fawn
To respire no more
Death in every pore
The car came so quick
Like a fast pin prick
He was breathing, then not
Just a onetime shot
His brother he ran
The road he did scan
It was too much to bear
Not a rip or a tear
Yet eyes closed tight
Without much fight
They lay him down
Dressed in brown
Hands fold on his chest
They lay him to rest

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We crawl along in the crowded bus; a little girl with yellow-rimmed plastic sunglasses laughs as she puts the glasses on the boy next to her. Young mothers stare sympathetically and cajole their rowdy offspring. I glance around, shifting my weight from one foot to the other as the long journey drags. I recognize many of my students: Dilcia, Karla, Jorge, Jesus, Merari, Henri, Yovanina, Wilmer. . . It’s an unlikely funeral procession. The bus is filled with brightly colored shirts and no one’s crying. I feel like I might cry.

Yesterday afternoon, Yester, a tiny blond-haired 2nd grader, was hit by a car while crossing a main road and killed immediately. The principal and Txus arrived just a few hours after it happened. His family laid him on the only furnishing they owned, a small table, and illuminated his lifeless body with just one candle. His still-warm hands were folded on his chest, clutching a small crucifix.

I stare methodically out the window. Cars pass our diminutive procession. Why are they in such a hurry, I ponder. Hurry is what snuffed out Yester’s precious life. On one side of the road, death screams at me; dry cornfields, heaps of decaying trash, and tiny crosses scattered every few miles, a reminder that Yester was neither the first nor the last. I decide to try my luck on the other side. My eyes are dazzled by the sun’s rays as they fiercely reflect off the river in white sheets. I muse over the irony. The road of our existence is a dichotomy between death and life. Christ’s sacrifice enables us to live through His death, yet many times we jump off the bus of life onto the wrong side, tantalized by the shiny garbage we see instead of drinking from the life-giving water on the other side.

We pull off the main road and are immediately thrust into the well-kept and clean streets of Gualala. It looks like a ghost town, an abandoned paradise of fenced-in homes, with only a scattering of uniform-clad students wandering around. The sun lowers in the cerulean sky and a gentle breeze plays a rustling tune. We stop in front of a large deserted park and file off the bus. A few trucks pull up behind us, family and friends piling out and making their way to the grandiose Catholic church. I desperately try to spot Yester’s mother, but as I scan the crowd for tearful women, I see no one crying.

The black coffin rests coldly in the back of one of the trucks; a few cautious souls approach, carefully lifting the lid. A man comes to open the church and a multitude of children and young parents flood inside. I sit near the back, scrunched up against a wooden pillar. The eerie quiet is interrupted with the sound of tiny feet and voices echoing. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the stooped old man in a lime-green shirt who feebly makes his way to the pulpit is definitely not priest-like. He begins the service in a raspy whisper, which is quickly drowned out in heedless commotion. Parents strain forward to hear, but even those with the best intentions have no idea what is going on. Someone points out the mother, young and worn-out, sitting near the back in a black tank top and army pants. She cradles a blond-haired boy in her lap, a spitting image of Yester. Sunlight streams in through the open doors behind me, lighting the strange glass-cased figures at the front of the church. The priest carries a red plastic bowl and silver baton to the coffin and splashes it a few times. The family arranges a procession around the coffin and we make our way out of the church, temporarily blinded by the glittery sunlight on the steps outside. To the cemetery we trudge. A small boy asks his mother what a cemetery is for. I must pass the coffin. I hold my breath and try to picture his sweet little face, yet I prepare for death’s unsightly handiwork; white foam bubbles around his mouth and his features are clouded with purple. I hurry past, trying to erase the horrible image from my mind. His mother walks by slowly, clutching a white rag and methodically wiping a few runaway tears from her tired eyes. I feel like I should hug her, but shrink back. The ground is littered with fading plastic flowers and debris, proof that even the indestructible renown of synthetics has an end. It’s obvious no planning went into the organization and layout of the cemetery; graves and crosses are mangled together in a grotesque tribute to life’s hideous conclusion. Golden rays of sun glint through tree branches, the day’s farewell. We say farewell too, a group of onlookers watching as dirt is shoveled over the coffin. Some crowd close, others huddle in groups a distance away. It’s over.

Just a few days before he sat on the front row in English class, scrawling notes in his cartoon notebook. That’s how I’ll remember him, the little trouble maker in a blue t-shirt and maroon Alborada gym pants.

"Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"

"God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more, neither shall there be anguish (sorrow and mourning) nor grief nor pain any more, for the old conditions and the former order of things have passed away."

I can’t wait for that day. Maybe Yester will be there.