Cape May

The Reunion

Grandma's death came all of a sudden like. One day she was fine, then bam! a week later she's dead. She was 93, but a healthy 93. She walked around with a skip to her step and still did house chores, according to my mother. That's why it was a surprise to everybody. But I guess at 93, tomorrow is never guaranteed. She died on Wednesday, July 6th, 2015. I really felt bad because my mother had invited us over for a fourth of July barbeque just that past weekend, but I opted to go to the Hamptons where I had a summer place.

We were pretty much attached to her because she practically raised us. Us, that's my sister and me. I know, I should say 'my sister and I,' but I've never been one for academia. Heck, I failed remedial English twice. So, as you go through this story, if you remember that I'm not exactly Shakespeare, you'll get the drift of what I'm saying.

I think this story can only best be told my way – imperfectly.

So, as I was saying, I'm the boy and she's the girl, two years younger. My father and mother divorced when we were really, really young and so my mother and grandma raised us by themselves. Living in New York, I was able to take a few days off and went to Jersey to help mommy with the funeral arrangements.

My sister Gabby, short for Gabriela, was going to be there. She was flying in from Seattle with her husband John and her two kids, an eight-year old named James and his younger sister Gabriela. Her and John moved to Seattle nine years ago when he got a job "to die for" as she put it. She was a lawyer. A litigator actually, but after a few years on the west coast, she stopped lawyering, as she likes to say, to raise her two kids.

Me, I'm in the financial sector and quite successful at it. I live with my wife Holly and our twin daughters, Gabriela and Michele in a large expensive high rise in Soho in Manhattan. I know, Gabriela is a popular name in our family. My mother named my sister Gabriela for certain reasons, she in turn named her daughter Gabriela and I named one of my daughters Gabriela because of my sister.

The last time I saw my sister was eleven years ago, when she graduated from Georgetown University. That was June 20th, 2004.

Except for the occasional holiday cards, and letters we would write each other over the years, we haven't seen or talked to each other since then. That's kind of funny because we were very close growing up. Well, as close as a guy could be with his bratty little sister.

Gabby and her husband arrived at Newark International on Friday, the day before the funeral. Mommy insisted she stay with her because she hadn't seen her grandkids in ages. I picked them up at the airport and was surprised to see she was as beautiful as ever. At 32, with two kids, she really was a stunner. She had gained a few pounds over those eleven years, which actually seemed to put the finishing touches on her 5'8" frame. It's as if Picasso decided to go back and touch up one of his paintings. John was an aloof kind of guy. I had met him briefly years ago right before they made the big move to the west coast. They made an odd couple, she the gorgeous, statuesque beauty and he kind of simple, dowdy like. It's as if he won the relationship lottery.

This was the first time I had seen my niece and nephew and they turned out to be fun kids. Although James was only eight and his sister Gabriela six, they talked like adults, with well-structured sentences and complete thoughts. They used the correct words, verbs and syntax in their conversations. I know somebody had invested some time on them.

We had a huge dinner that night. There was family I never knew I had. Friends come to pay their respect. It was great seeing people I haven't seen in years. Tommy Brown was there. He was my best friend in high school. We laughed about the fight we'd had as kids, all water under the bridge now, although for the longest he'd kept asking me why I lit into him the way I did. I never really gave him an appropriate answer.

The atmosphere was that of reserved festivity. You know, when you get together with family and friends you haven't seen in ages, you want to live it up, enjoy the moment. Drink and be merry as they say.

Funerals are good that way. They bring together people you haven't seen in ages and probably wouldn't actually make the effort to anyway. And so, everyone goes around asking everyone else, 'hey, let me get your number,' knowing full well after that night they probably will never see each other again. But everyone knew why we were there so the festive mood was subdued, almost restrained. But we drank and laughed, but not too loud and reminisced about the past.

The funeral and burial was the next day, Saturday. It was an early affair and the entire entourage, family and friends, were back at mommy's house by four.

We all picked up where we left off the night before, the drinking and carrying on. But since grandma was already in the ground we figured, what the heck, no reason for restraint.

My family consists of Puerto Ricans and Italians. Not exactly the quiet types. Mommy said grandma wouldn't want us to be moping around anyway. I could tell she was a bit tipsy cause she went around hugging everybody and offering a toast. I'm not quite sure what she was toasting to, but everybody toasted along with her.

Then they put on some old salsa music with Eddie Palmieri, Ray Barretto, Tito Puente and other artists I recognized from my youth as mommy and grandma were always listening to them. As everybody tried to dance salsa in the house, I decided to go out back and reminisce. It had been15 years since I left mommy's house and every time I returned, it's amazing how everything looked smaller.

Everything except the back, that is.

We had about four acres and mommy made the most of it. She had built a large Grotto like structure in the garden, complete with Koi fish and benches that encircled the pond they were in. Now four acres is a whole lot of land in Franklin Lakes New Jersey. Franklyn Lakes is a very well to do neighborhood, but today all the land has been divided into quarter acre lots or smaller. If you can find a one-acre lot today, you basically hit the jackpot. A quarter acre lot can run you over a million dollars for the land itself, then you gotta build the house. It's not exactly a place for the financially squeamish. An expensive place that Franklin Lakes. And so, with all that land, mommy made the most of it. Over the years she landscaped the place so that it resembled a small park, with paths leading here and there. It really was beautiful.

I was surprised when I ran into my sister back there.

She said everybody was having a great time. It was like a party. I chuckled, she laughed, and we walked along in silence. I hadn't seen her in over eleven years. Alone with her now, without her husband and kids, there was that awkwardness that accompanies people who were once close and through time and space, have drifted apart.

We made small talk about this and that. Finally, we got to an opening where most of the garden was visible and we sat on a bench that afforded a panoramic view of the gardens and the pond. We could see her children now, playing near the pond and her daughter Gabriela was getting too close to the water's edge when suddenly, as if by instinct, my sister yelled out, "Jimmeeee, take care of your sis...."

She stopped in mid sentence, looked at me and started to laugh. Soon she was laughing uncontrollably. She bent over placing her head in her hands and the laughing turned into crying. The tears ran down her forearms and onto the sleeves of her blouse. Her sobbing was intense, and I could see her back and chest heaving with every sob. There was not much I could do but place my arm around her shoulder and draw her to me. And still the sobbing continued. Family and friends passing by saw us and offered their condolences for they thought she was crying for our deceased grandmother.

But I knew otherwise.