Hello! I am writing this post because it is about a loss and I want to recognize that by sharing it. I also want to share the significance and importance of the funeral and burial in Santa Clara.
I will share on the front end that it involves the loss of a baby. I don’t want to discourage you from reading it because I think it’s important even though it’s sad, but if it’s triggering to you, then don’t read it.
If you do pray, I would ask you whether you read the post or not, to pray for my host cousin. You can refer to her and to everyone in the story as the “Ixmatá Family.”
One other thing, I should clarify who is who: I live with three women: Abuelita Clara (age 90), Host Mom Rosario (66) and my host sister Clara (39). There used to be a fourth woman who lived in this house also named Rosario. My Abuelita raised her and therefore considered her a daughter, even though she was her granddaughter. Rosario was technically a niece to my Host Mom and an Aunt to my Host Sister, but by all accounts she was a sister to both of them. She will be mentioned in the story. And a word to the wise: because my host grandmother is named Clara and she is the matriarch of the family, our family has a lot of Claras. My host sister Clara is the most important Clara in the story (you know, from my point of view). Don’t get lost in the other Claras or names of family members.
Herlinda is my host cousin and next door neighbor. She is younger than me (maybe she is 27 or 28) but she seems so much wiser, a mother and a poised professional who works in the capital. She is strong of character and has a beautiful smile. I see her about once a week. She is the mother in this story.
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He was absolutely perfect, this three day old baby. My host sister had peeled back a shiny, white fabric to show me his face. His eyes were perfect, his nose: perfect, his mouth: perfect while slightly curling inward toward what would have been teeth when he was a little older. But he wouldn’t grow older. His casket was the size of an Amazon Prime shipment.
I looked at the blue card placed on the table. “Santiago” my host sister said as she saw me searching. I had wondered since we got notice of his condition, if he would have a name. There were tiny pieces of tissue pushed up inside his tiny nostrils, but he still looked like a doll. I’ve seen that at several viewings, the tissue pushed up the nose, I guess it’s there to stop any liquid from running out but I don’t know. Something began to sting my eyes. It must have been the formaldehyde or chemical treatment they put on his body. I had to step back a bit because of how harsh the chemical was, but I didn’t want to. My host sister must have thought that I stepped back because I was too sad to see the baby, but really I couldn’t handle the formaldehyde. She gently pulled the fabric back over him responding to my distance.
The parallels with my childhood and this moment were terribly real. I myself had a brother pass away when he was three days old. That was 23 years ago, but his death stays with me in myriad ways. You may move on but you don’t let go of such losses.
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After a very long day, my host sister walked into the kitchen and said: “Tengo una mala noticia.” She went on to explain that my host cousin, whose family house shares a wall with ours, gave birth to a baby and he is not going to survive. This baby was immediately placed on a breathing machine when he was born. On Friday he stopped breathing before the allotted 72 hours when the hospital staff was to “pull the plug.” That’s a terrible phrase when it comes to someone’s existence. Now it is Saturday and we will bury this baby today.
Funerals, I have learned, are such a unique and culturally-specific window into death and therefore life. As a two-year volunteer in Santa Clara La Laguna in rural Guatemala, I’ve learned the norms around death and the many differences between this culture and my own. Everything from body preparation, burials, wakes and attitudes are entirely different than back home. But the especially tender loss of a newborn baby is universally tragic, I don’t have to travel the world to know it.
In Guatemala they use the word ‘light’ to refer to the electricity. If the power goes out, they say “se fue la luz” the light went out, instead of saying “the power went out.” So when my host sister told me, via my host cousin who was telling another host cousin who was informing my host sister who was informing me, she said: “Él está conectada por la luz” it struck me as so deeply beautiful, “He is connected to the light.” That is what I took it to mean, though I know that isn’t what she said. She was referring to the machine powering his heart and oxygen… “connected to the light.”
On Friday night, we learned that the baby had passed away and they were sending everyone home: the mom, dad, little brother and baby. They were four hours away in the country’s capital. Clara (my host sister) told me that she was going to wait up for her cousin, I felt a twinge of something sad, heavy. I am so inspired by the commitment to family and sad that I don’t spring to help my extended family in the same ways. The bonds in pueblos are much different than in big cities, or maybe I am excusing the distance with distance. I’m not sure. My host sister was talking over what she should begin to cook for her cousin when she would arrive. My host mom, too, was going to accompany the family next door as they waited for them to arrive with the baby, stay up all night. Abuelita, too, wasn’t tired. She paced back and forth through the kitchen to the bedroom, but she didn’t lay down as usual.
I sat in the kitchen on the small wooden chair, as the news fell and settled in around me, and I could feel another presence. This tragic family loss brought their sister’s memory back to them. Clara, Doña Rosario and I sat next to the wood-burning stove, I sat in a different spot than usual, next to my host mom in a smaller chair so I was physically lower than her. It was a better spot to listen. My host mom began to tell me many stories she had told me before about the loss of her sister, also named Rosario. They were both Rosarios. As we sat, she recounted the sleepless nights, the suffering, the hospital visits during Rosario’s sickness. And my host mom began to tear up, tired from a long day’s work and very calm from her warm bath in the tuj/sauna (Friday night is tuj night). When they left the tuj tonight is when they got the news that the baby was on the way and that he had already died. When I walked into the kitchen they told me the news, and while we feared this would happen, in fact we were anticipating it, the finality of his departure still hit us in the chest. He was gone.
There are layers to such a realization. There is the moment that you learn that the baby is not healthy. Then the moments you spend anticipating the death of the baby, but not knowing when it will come, or when he will go. Then there is the news of the death, which you anticipated but never hoped for. And maybe you feel relief if he was suffering. They said he never opened his eyes. It feels like a series of griefs in grayscale, darker with each shade of reality but all equally hopeless.
My host mom was still in the middle of her story: “The surgery was going to cost more than 100,000 quetzales” (that’s ~$13,000 USD) my host mom said, the light of the fire reflecting off her irises. “But my sister, Rosario, told them that we couldn’t pay for it and to please help us. And they did help us find money for the surgery…” I don’t know near enough about healthcare in this country or financial aid to pontificate or even comment, but I do know that there isn’t medicaid that’s simply floating around. So this was nothing short of a miracle, what happened with her sister and this surgery. Clara walked back into the hospital and interrupted the nostalgic, sad story my host mom recounted. I went upstairs and asked them to keep me informed. They were pendiente to go next door and wait with the family, wait to receive the baby, to meet the baby and bury the baby on the same day.
Why is the family so far away from Santa Clara? You might wonder. This is important to understand. My host cousins, the mother and father of the baby, work and live in the capital. They have a son who is 2 years old and he lives next door to me and is raised by his grandparents and cousins. It is difficult to find jobs in the campo, so many people go to the capital to work. Many of my students go to the capital to work during summer vacation. It’s far away, but there is also better access to healthcare there. There is more access to everything there, including drugs, danger and crime. There is a health center in Santa Clara, but it does not have the capacity of a hospital. There are private and public hospitals in Guatemala and if you have an urgent or severe need, you go to a private hospital (if you can afford it).
I wondered who was driving them, the family with the baby? My host sister told me she thinks the hospital provided transportation. I called my real mom and told her the baby was gone. I laid on my bed, my head at the feet and my feet on my pillows, looking up at my fairy lights and tin-foil chandelier (if you can call it that), and I told her that the baby was gone. She told me she was sorry. She asked me if he had a name. I still didn’t know. My mom knows what it’s like to lose a baby because she lost many. She specifically lost my brother in almost the same circumstance.
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The next morning I got up at 10am (definitely sleeping in late for me), put my traje on (asking my neighbor friend to tie my belt for me as my host sister wasn’t home) and just as I was leaving, Abuelita came home: my messenger angel. “Abuelita, cuando van a enterrar el nene?” (When are they going to bury the baby) she told me the time. I asked if she was going. She said nooooo no no. Sometimes her fragile body makes it too difficult, but I wondered if it was the sadness more than her age. I’ve seen her go through the procession on Easter Sunday with Jesus’ statue, a stand-up, crouch down nearly Olympic event, and her lasting longer than myself. Maybe her heart couldn’t take it and her body wouldn’t push her otherwise.
I walked next door and asked the muchacha if they were going to the cemetery. She swung open the corrugated steel gate and told me to come in, that the baby was upstairs if I wanted to see. I’ve passed this house 20 million times, I know every person who lives inside it, but I have never stepped foot in it. In the courtyard I saw my host mom on her knees and several other women leaning over vegetables, cutting off skins and chopping large cabbage leaves and preparing tamalitos (maize logs wrapped and boiled in long green leaves): these were the signs of caldo, a meat broth that they serve specifically at weddings and funerals. I just ate caldo at a wedding last week. I didn’t linger there but looked for my host sister. I saw Clara and she asked me if I wanted to go upstairs to meet the baby. I was surprised at how excited see seemed to introduce me to him.
I truly didn’t want to see the baby. I thought it would make me too sad. But I didn’t feel that it would traumatize me, just make me sad, so I said: “Sí” and probably mumbled something about “only if it is appropriate.” Then I stopped Clara on the stairs: “should I bring the sugar right now?” And she assured me that I could bring sugar, a custom for funerals, after I visit the baby.
When I got upstairs I followed Clara into a room with maybe eight people inside. On the table there was a coffin. The bedroom connected to the room was where I saw Herlinda’s face, the baby’s mom. She was laying down, her face was swollen and sick. Clara led me over to the tiny casket and I saw Santiago’s face. We did not stand there long. Then she took me to see Herlinda, her face swollen from tears and surgery and having recently given birth. I walked into the room where Herlinda was laying down. She was covered in pink and purple blankets and wore a pink zip up jacket. I said: “pink is your color.” She smiled weakly.
I also told her how sorry I am. I told her beautiful her baby is, Santiago. She said: “Yes, he is very beautiful but ‘se fue.’” Of all the times I’ve heard ‘se fue’ in this country (went away) this is definitely the heaviest use of the expression. An older couple was sitting on the other side of the bed, speaking to Herlinda in K’iche’ and myself catching parts of what they were saying. Paciencia I heard. They were trying to comfort her, remind her to take her time to heal from the cesarean section. But healing from the loss of the baby would be a different recovery.
My host sister explained: “Natalie understands. Something like this happened to her family when she was young. She understands what you are experiencing.” So I shared with Herlinda: I told her that something like this happened to my mom, something eerily similar actually (which I didn’t say). I didn’t know if she was a touchy- feely person, but I wanted to gently touch the part of her leg near her knee. It felt necessary. I told her about my baby brother and that I hoped that her son and my brother were playing in heaven together. I didn’t want to make her grief about mine, but I have noticed that people in this culture share stories of their own loss as an offering of comfort. It’s not a self-absorbed attempt to hear themselves talk, it’s an offering or companionship in your pain (I think).
People were walking in and out of the room, another cousin (Herlinda’s sister) Rosita walked in and asked: Should we go to the cemetery now? Or eat now and go afterwards? and they determined it looked like the rain would hold off and they would eat now. I saw Clara, not my host sister but another Clara, pull a folded-up 100q from her woven belt and hand it to Rosita. Then the aunt on the other side of the bed did the same, handing over money to help. Rosita took the folded money and went back downstairs, I imagine to buy more ingredients for lunch.
I could see that everyone was exhausted but there was still work to be done. Food had to be served to all visitors to the home, and then the baby had to be carried to the cemetery and given holy rites (I’m not sure if that is what it is called? but a ceremony before being buried). The word enterrar means ‘to bury’ but enterrar literally sounds like: in the earth, earth=tierra. But they don’t but the bodies into the ground in Santa Clara. They have concrete tombs built above ground where they can be stacked one on top of the other, families together. The caskets are carried from the home on the shoulders of 6 family members all the way to the cemetery, where the caskets are slid into the cement tomb, then it’s sealed off with concrete blocks and wet cement. This all happens during the burial. You don’t pay someone else to bury the dead, to lower the casket in, it is done by the work of everyone’s hands, the family and friends of the deceased.
The little kids came in and out of the room where Herlinda was, some with parents and others alone. I wondered how sad it made Herlinda to see other babies. But children are less of a choice here, they are life. I sat with Herlinda for a long time, perhaps longer than necessary, and the room went silent as I quietly ate the bread and sipped the sugary coffee my host sister and host cousin (both named Clara) brought me. I didn’t know if Herlinda wanted to be alone. Eventually I sad “it’s sad when there are people and it’s sad when there aren’t.” She agreed with: “sí es may confuso.”
Eduardo, Herlinda’s husband who everyone’s called Chinito because of his slanted eyes, walked into the room holding their son Diego. He was tired and cranky. Herlinda and Eduardo talked about what they should do: take him downstairs or wait out the fussiness. 4 year-old Mireilla came in. She is my little host cousin. She always calls me “Amiga” and sometimes calls me “Tía Chayo” on accident (which is the name of my host mom).
Eventually I told Herlinda that I was going to sit downstairs and I slowly meandered back to the first floor. I had brought a coloring book to share with the littles, and before you know it, Mireilla and I were in a coloring frenzy as the other little kids ran through the kitchen like their own terremotos. I saw Leonel, he is Herlinda’s brother, I asked him how he was doing but in English. He said: “I feel like my heart is ripped out.” I looked at him with understanding and sadness, what else could I do? I gave him a hug. We were about to eat lunch but there weren’t enough seats. Clara left with some men to bring our kitchen table over from next door. After another 20 minutes we were called into the courtyard: Lunch was to be served.
It was the traditional wake food: chicken broth with vegetables and one piece of chicken on the bone in the broth. There were tamalitos, which you peel from the giant green leaves and hold in your non-dominant hand. As you eat the broth, you nibble on the tamalito. Some people eat 5 or 8 during a meal. You just leave the leaf wrappings all splayed out on the table until someone piles them all together after the meal. I poured chili all over the food, I get bored with this stuff but chili helps with the flavor at least. When Adrian arrived and sat down, he asked for chile. Clara got up to get it for him and I wanted to die. They are not close, they are not even kin. But because she is the woman and he is the man, she has to get the chile. As far as I am concerned he can get his own damn chile.
Later I found out that the family was driven here by borrowing a friend’s car in the capital. They would have to return the car at some point, but for now it was in Santa Clara.
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After lunch, everyone sat on the curb outside of the house to wait to go to the cemetery. It looked like rain. As we waited strangers asked me the familiar questions: Where are you from? How Long Have You Lived Here? You Speak K’iche’? Are You Married? Will You Marry a Clareño And Stay Here Forever? Why Don’t You Want Children? I couldn’t respond: Well, the answer is before you as to why I don’t want children. I grabbed a sweater from my house.
Mireilla was covered from head-to-toe in a Madeline coat with matching hat. You would think we were in the dead of winter by how seriously people wrap themselves when it gets below 72 degrees. After about 30 minutes we saw the casket being carried down and we began to follow it. Abuelita, my abuelita, sat on the curb watching and I looked back to see her forlorn expression and her tears. She was speaking, calling out to God I imagine, but I don’t know what she was saying. She looked so, so sad.
We walked a different path than is normal to go to the cemetery. We had to avoid the market (because it was Saturday, market day) so we took the back roads to the cemetery. Rosita said: “Quiere llover” and Leonel said: “It doesn’t want to rain, it is going to rain..” Mireilla was holding my hand and holding her uncle’s too.
The casket was carried on the shoulders of someone I didn’t know. It was blue and white and looked like a life-sized cupcake. It looked too beautiful and innocent and too easy to be mistaken with a birthday present. We passed the house of two brand-new volunteers who just arrived to Santa Clara. I saw them in the courtyard and I waved weakly. I didn’t stop. I would have to explain later.
When we entered the cemetery, we walked through the brightly painted graves and approached the grave of Rosario, my deceased host sister. To the right of her tomb was an empty one, unpainted. This was meant for the baby. It was meant for an adult casket but my host uncle already owned this grave, so he offered it to his daughter for her son. From here, things only got sadder.
I noticed that Herlinda, the baby’s mother, was not with us. I was confused and conflicted as to why a mother would miss her own baby’s burial but there must be a reason that I don’t understand. Holy rites began, and they were not long. The small group that gathered around the grave were probably ready for this to be over, too sad to fathom. I saw Eduardo, the baby’s father, in our little group. He seemed fairly calm and I couldn’t read his expression, almost like he could have been any one of us instead of the bereaved. I wanted to comfort him because his wife wasn’t there. I wanted to comfort him anyway, but I don’t know him and I couldn’t. I was there and that was what I could offer: being there.
As it began to sprinkle rain, some furnished umbrellas and others sought shelter. My host uncle, the grandfather of this baby, began to bury the child. I saw a bucket, cement mix, water in a tinaja (a carrying jug), a spade, a level, and concrete blocks had been carried here by our group. I can only imagine that the sadder thing than losing a baby is burying him with your own two hands. I saw Eduardo’s face wrinkle with up tears and grief.
I watched my host uncle push the casket far back into the tomb. My host cousin Clara piped up: “that’s far enough.” The casket wasn’t pushed all the way to the back, I could still see that little cupcake coffin during the task of sealing off the grave, until the last blocks were in place. It took about 45 minutes to mix the cement, shave off the blocks to fit exactly and seal them in. He had a level in his hand. The group took to idle chatter while Tío did his work. When it started to rain, some pulled out a tarp to suspend over Tío.
I was secretly grateful for the gender roles I hated at lunch. I did not want to see a woman burying a baby. No wonder men have to cloak themselves with the impervious facade so they can make it through something like this.
Eventually it started to rain more heavily. The grave was sealed off and I walked through the chapel back to the street. I heard a woman say to Eduardo, the father: “Take care of your wife, Eduardo, we are más delicadas y fragiles.” I wanted to strangle the woman. What about his feelings? Herein lies one downside of machismo for men. I left before him but I saw him take off jogging ahead of us, alone. He had an umbrella in hand but he didn’t use it. I bet he wanted to get the heck out of there.
Later on I asked Clara: “Why wasn’t Herlinda at the burial?” and she reacted very strongly: She is recovering from surgery, she can’t go out to the cemetery with the cold and the rain. Still I don’t think a mother in the States would miss the burial of her baby. There are blankets, coats, tuk-tuks to take you back and forth and umbrellas to keep you dry. I am not judging I just didn’t understand it.
And I still don’t really understand any of it. I don’t think loss is meant to be understood.
Later in the afternoon I bought two pounds of sugar and deposited in the kitchen in a plastic bag.
I almost left for the weekend and I am so glad that I didn’t. I am not that close with Herlinda but I had to be there. When someone loses someone, especially a baby, you show up. You be there. That’s what you do, even in the technology obsessed culture in the States you go to the funeral, you show up.
Prayers, Thoughts and Comfort for the Ixmatá Family.