Death (Week 23)
Cesia stood on tiptoes at my window peering through the wire mesh. I had left the heavy, stained glass doors open to let the somewhat cooler air fill my room throughout the night.
"Brookecita!"
I lifted my heavy eyelids, trying to pretend I didn't hear anything.
"Brookecita?"
I rolled my shoulders over. "Si?"
"Mia. Brookecita, Mia muertó."
I was still in bed, hoping my precious Sunday sleep-in morning wasn't ending. "Muerte means death," I thought to myself. My conversational Spanish has finally reached the point where I can have normal conversations with little help and less grammatical errors, but when I wake up even English can sound foreign. I knew Mia, the puppy, had been sick, but it wasn't the first time, and I wasn't too worried.
"What Cesia?"
"Mia muertó."
Did she mean she was dying? Because they always worried about that. I was told that they had lost two or three puppies the year before. I'm guessing from Parvo, a disease that often effects dogs and especially puppies. We vaccinate for it in the States, but in Peru people don't usually take the initiative to vaccinate their animals. But Cesia had clearly ended the word in an "o" with a stronger accented lilt, indicating past tense.
I squeezed my eyes tight and then opened them again, as if to bring my sleepy vision to life by restarting. I sat up and slid my feet into my yellow flip-flops. Those flip flops are almost as much a part of me as my actual feet. I walked to my bedroom door and heard the loud "ka-thunk, click" as I opened it.
Llingli, Giselle, and Cesia stood outside.
"Mia passed away," said Giselle soberly. "Mia muertó!" Cesia said again, this time a little more intensely. I stood in my pajamas trying to make sense of my morning surroundings. Mama always says, "We don't wake up. We come to."
I was actually surprised. Everyone was clearly sad, but there were no tears, not even from four-year-old Cesia. I hadn't liked Mia. She was pure mischief and full of strong, German shepherd energy, but she WAS improving with training. The solemnity of death hung over our heads.
"I found her early this morning," Giselle said. "She just didn't look right. She was too still.
A while later, after I had "come to," Cesia came to my room again.
"Brookecita. Ven. Miras a Mia."
How was supposed to tell a four-year-old that I didn't want to see Mia. Death doesn't get easier with age, and I didn't care to see a lifeless puppy. But, Cesia was already leading me back behind the dorms and past the garden. I stooped beneath a banana tree and a papaya tree that formed a little arbor over the path. To my relief they had already dug a small grave. Hard clay was packed overtop and a little cross was draped with pink and yellow flowers, freshly cut.
"I don't think we'll have a puppy now," Joel was saying. I could hear defeat in his 10-year-old voice. Death. I'd cried over my pets soo many times as a child. It never got easier. By the time I was 13 or 14 I had simply learned to stop caring about animals as much. Now, only a few warmed themselves into my heart enough to rip it out, but it usually still bleed a little.
Cesia handed me one of the yellow flowers. Only the petals remained. The stamen and pollen had been plucked out. Life. Cut.
"Gracias por la flor," I smiled gently at Cesia. She seemed only a little sad. How does a four-year-old bounce back from a puppy's death so easily. I was 20. I hadn't even liked the dog. And even I still longed for my mama to hug me and remind me that one day death won't rule. I missed living in a country where even the animals were expected to live. I was tired of living in a world where death had any say at all.
I walked back under the banana and papaya trees with my yellow flower. I was up now. My Sunday had commenced.
~TBS~