Quinceanera

If a Latina had been born on July 23, 2005 she would be celebrating what is called a quinceanera, her fifteenth birthday.  In Latin America and in Latinx culture this is a big deal.  Fancy dresses and a big old party are in order, except probably not right now.  Today my family "celebrates" the quinceanera of my brother Jonathan's death.  Like a lot the experience of many young Latinas this year, this is now primarily defined more by absence than by whatever used to be.  The reason a quinceanera is significant is that 15 is seen as the gateway to adulthood. As the father of a nearly 15 year old girl, I'm not cool with that, but let's roll with the thought.  The idea of my brother's absence in our lives has grown up now.  It's not new and raw anymore.  In fact, most of the time I can see some very constructive and perhaps even good things that have grown out of a field that is covered in the manure of grief.

Sort of like I cannot imagine a world without my daughter Cate, I also increasingly cannot imagine a world with my brother in it.  For a while I felt this sharp sting of absence when people would do things with their brother, or when I would consider the things I used to do with Jon.  Now I can't feel that unless I really try at it, and even picking at that sore spot seems a bit dishonest at this point.  I have no idea what an almost 40 year old Jon would be like.  I don't know if we would be close, I don't know if we would still get on each other's nerves, or if we would be all grown up about everything.

I guess that's how I know this absence has come of age.  I just don't really wonder that much about things like that anymore.  I suppose one aspect of maturity is that you learn to accept certain things as simple reality instead of whining about how unfair things are.  I've done my share of whining over the years, now I guess I'm just marking the spot where something significant and irrevocable happened.  Is it really just that simple, the balance of the only perfect statistic: one birth, one death, for everyone?

I think the thing about being truly and fully human is that you learn to mark significant things and both grieve and celebrate them.  Whether it's a happy thing like a little girl turning into a young woman or a sad thing like a young man turning into a memory, the way we hold these significant things is what makes us human.

The value of it is particularly salient this year, because today, at least, I can think about something other than a virus and the incompetent morons in charge of our government.  It's sort of like Ash Wednesday, a stark reminder that all of us are dust and to dust we shall return, but with everything that's been happening, it feels like a genuine reprieve to think of something else.

So happy resurrection quinceanera Jon, hope you're growing faster there.