Each time I go to the grave of my mom, Maria de la Luz Arellano Miranda, I observe the identical ritual.
I park on a cul de sac inside Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Orange, then wander round for a minimum of 10 minutes, irritated with myself for at all times forgetting the precise location the place Mami is buried. I finally discover her tombstone: black marble engraved with the years of her life, a private message crafted by my sisters, her nickname, La Ley (“The Legislation,” given to her by her father, my Papa Je, when she was only a lady for her no-nonsense methods) and a small portrait of her in her early 20s, worthy of a magnificence queen.
My mom’s grave is inside eyesight of a giant statue of the Santo Niño de Atocha, an apparition of the toddler Jesus omnipresent within the lives of individuals from the state of Zacatecas, the place she was born. Many from that diaspora are buried in Holy Sepulcher, together with each of my maternal grandparents, household buddies and cousins — and, in the future, myself. So I recite the Lord’s Prayer and a Hail Mary for all of us, then pull up YouTube on my smartphone to play a mariachi model of “Lara’s Theme,” the track Mami requested we play at her funeral.
The second that mournful violins sound out their acquainted melody, I bawl. The ache I really feel at her demise in 2019 from ovarian most cancers at age 67 stays too uncooked. The guilt over not visiting her sufficient whereas she was alive, for not appreciating Mami’s love till it was too late or not saying issues I wished to inform her, haunts me.
My household laid her to relaxation 5 years in the past at the moment, in a ceremony I keep in mind prefer it occurred yesterday.
A whole bunch attended the Mass in her identify at St. Boniface in Anaheim, my household’s house parish for many years. The noontime burial was sunny however not sizzling. There was mariachi, wails, fainting, hugs. Afterward, we returned to St. Boniface for a reception catered by Burritos La Palma, the well-known Southern California chain with roots in the identical Mexican metropolis, Jerez, as my mother and father.
The rendition of “Lara’s Theme” I play — titled “Tema de Lara” in Spanish — is by Los Camperos de Nati Cano, the pioneering L.A.-based outfit that Mami was a fan of for backing Linda Ronstadt throughout her mariachi period. As a hopeful, solitary trumpet soars over the strums of guitars, the tears don’t cease as I take into consideration every part I realized from Mami’s laborious life, one lower quick proper when it was about to get actually good.
A yr of devastating frost adopted by one other yr of drought destroyed consecutive harvests for my grandfather and compelled him to maneuver his household to the USA within the Sixties, when Mami was 9. His declining well being meant she needed to drop out of center faculty in Anaheim to select strawberries. She handled the alcoholism and playing of my father of their early years of marriage, and his machismo till the day she handed.
But Mami at all times pushed ahead. She received a union job as a tomato packer on the outdated Hunt-Wesson manufacturing unit in Fullerton, which entitled her to a small pension in her later years (she would say with pleasure that her union consultant advised the feminine staff to by no means let their husbands contact the cash). It was Mami who satisfied my dad to save lots of sufficient cash to purchase a three-bedroom, two-bath house with a swimming pool in a greater a part of Anaheim in 1988 to boost us youngsters.
By no means absolutely fluent in English, Mami nonetheless took us to the library as a lot as she may. When she realized that pulling us from faculty to spend weeks in Mexico affected our studying, Mami flatly advised my dad that these holidays wouldn’t occur once more. When Hunt-Wesson laid her off within the late Nineties, she studied to turn into a beautician, then transitioned to baby care when the state wouldn’t permit her to get a license as a result of she by no means graduated from highschool. Her instance of going through a merciless world with grit and style influenced my three siblings and me to achieve life — or them, a minimum of. All of them work within the public sector, whereas I’m the black sheep of the household as a reporter.
The trumpet in “Lara’s Theme” turns cautious about midway in, however I get a small smile occupied with what I put my mami by. I vexed her like a Mexican Dennis the Menace. As an toddler, I might push her away when she tried to carry me and yell, “Ash!” for some purpose. I talked an excessive amount of in elementary faculty and by no means had good grades by highschool. As an grownup, I wrote and stated the craziest issues for work. However she may by no means keep mad at me too lengthy — not simply because I used to be the first-born son, however as a result of Mami knew how pleased I used to be in my profession, and happiness is what she wished for her kids as a result of it was lengthy denied to her.
One factor Mami may by no means forgive me for, nonetheless, was my type of costume. She hated my huaraches and scuffed sneakers, and at all times insisted on ironing my garments even after I realized how to take action. After I’d reply that wrinkles had been the concerns of the wealthy, she’d scold me and say one didn’t want cash to current oneself with class. At any time when I needed to put on a go well with and tie, she’d get an enormous grin and exclaim, “¡Así te quiero ver! (That’s how I wish to see you!)”
As “Lara’s Theme” swoons to its wistful finale, I keep in mind the final yr and a half of Mami’s life. Docs dismissed her preliminary complaints about belly pains as nothing to fret about till one lastly identified her with Stage 4 most cancers, with a survival price of simply 5%. The information devastated everybody who knew her, as a result of she was nearly to take pleasure in a well-deserved retirement together with her grown-up kids and a toddler grandson.
My siblings and I made positive she by no means spent a second alone. Since I had essentially the most versatile schedule, I normally took her to chemo. We might drive down La Palma Avenue in Anaheim to a Kaiser Permanente so I may ask about her recollections when town was nonetheless very agricultural (she stated the Japanese American farmers had been far nicer than the white ones). Again house, we watched reruns of the trivia present “The Chase,” and she or he at all times prompt that I seem on it as a result of I used to be capable of reply so most of the questions.
Maria de la Luz Arellano making gorditas at her house in Anaheim in 2018.
(The Arellano household)
We had hoped she may beat most cancers, but it surely wasn’t to be. My sisters and my Tía María’s daughters grew to become Mami’s essential caretakers as she declined. I used to be there when the cellphone name got here from her physician to say it was time to arrange for the tip. A parade of individuals stopped by our household house within the last weeks to inform Mami how necessary she was of their lives. That didn’t embody the readers who reached out to me after I wrote a column about Mami’s capirotada — Mexican Lenten bread pudding. I’m satisfied that the outpouring of care — that proof that she mattered — helped her higher endure most cancers’s horrible ache than any remedy.
She died on a night when it drizzled — an indication my household took as a message from God that our matriarch would lastly be at peace, since Mami beloved the sound of rain. I keep in mind that evening as “Lara’s Theme” ends and I dry my moist cheeks. I inform her concerning the good and dangerous her survivors have seen since her passing and the chasm in our hearts that may by no means be stuffed. I urge for forgiveness for not being a greater son and repeat the promise I carry with me wherever I’m going:
Mami, gracias for every part. I’ll always remember your sacrifices. I’ll at all times implore others to worth their household and buddies whereas they’re nonetheless round. I’ll ceaselessly write about your life, your classes, your nice meals and huge smile and everlasting love.
