Fast forward a few weeks later and I’m still just a little boy who doesn't know how to react to the news of his grandmother dying. At least not outside my own head. Inside my head there was a full scenario being played out, as there usually is. The entire family would be present, except for me, and I would show up a year or so later, wandering a cemetery and completely unable to find her grave because I’ll simply have no clue where it might be, because I wasn't there to lower her into it. Perhaps one of the simplest and most profound acts of respect a person can show another person: To bear the burden of their discarded body, to treat it properly and see that it is taken care of, to place it finally in a safe place, and to mark the spot and perhaps visit every now and again. And I. Wouldn't. Be. There.
Other scenarios played themselves out as well, including a visit from Mama in my dreams, just as she had done when I was smaller. Only instead of stabbing me in the back of the neck with a hypodermic needle, she would be nice. We would sit and chat; she in Spanish and I in English, and she would laugh and slap her thighs the way I never remember seeing her do. But I can imagine it the same way I've always imagined the few moments before and after the image of her and her husband standing in front of the frame of what would soon be their home and the home of their eight children. The picture that has hung on the living room wall for as long as there was a wall in the living room. The one with the man with the same rakish mustache I have now standing next to a pretty young girl with a young girl’s unfiltered smile.
A scenario that hadn't occurred to me was there suddenly, miraculously being a plane ticket with my name on it, final destination: Belize. And yet, here I am, writing from that concretely ambiguous location of the Miami airport. The ticket wasn't miraculous exactly. It hadn't appeared out of thin air. My mother and I travel frequently and she happened to have enough air miles to get me where I needed to be. It’s the getting back that’ll be the problem. Money for that will come out of something; a credit card payment or my yet-to-be-paid tuition. But there’s no point in worrying about that now. The old two-way door is swinging, better for me to concentrate on making the most of it.
Mostly, I had given up on going to Belize because my reasons for going all seemed sop self serving and ultimately superfluous. I was seeking the pleasure of old comforts and experiences, old friends, old lovers. I told myself that I had practical reasons; I needed to lay down the groundwork for a career once I finished with school. This is still true, but it wasn't the foremost thought on my mind. I’d also decided that I would be foisting myself on my family, an act which I probably shouldn't rush into until the end of my third year, when I didn't have any other choice. Now, instead of taking advantage of my family I’ll be required to fulfill my responsibility to them. I've absolved my guilt through terrible circumstances. The guilt is inescapable.
