Member-only story
Who Needs the Closure: Sharing My Grief in Public
A couple of weeks ago, I got a random instant message from one of my cousins. Growing up, we were close but as adults, I haven’t talked to him since our last family reunion. And that was back in 2011. He wanted to call me on the phone to talk to me.
Thinking it was one of the many texts I’ve received from family members with bad news in the last few years, I immediately gave him a call. And over the course of a two-hour conversation, where we caught up on our lives since we last saw each other, he got down to the not-so-serious business.
He’s a cousin on my mom’s side of the family, and there are 12 cousins to keep track of. Nearly all of them, including one of our brothers, live within an hour of our hometown, with four of us living out of state. It seems that two of my cousins wanted to know if I would be interested in having a life celebration for my mom, in addition to celebrating the lives of other family members we have lost recently. He was contacting everyone personally to make the pitch.
I come from a large extended Mexican American family, so when we have a get-together, it takes some planning. Living across the country, he wanted to know if I would want this experience for my mom and if I would show up if the cousins planned something.
