Do we really want to live in regrets and resentments? When my brother passed away, I couldn’t cry. Maybe I was in shock. My mother was at work and I had my dad go pick her up before he told her. She has been working as a janitor for years in one of the main offices downtown. It’s a pretty tall building and she works on the top floors, by herself. News like this, by herself, could have given her a heartack or a stroke. I was so relieved she forgot her cellphone at home. My dad set it down. He heard it vibrate, but didn’t bother with it.
When I saw him march out of his room in his underwear after the house phone rang, I knew something was wrong. I could hear the person on the phone but couldn’t make out, what sounded like a woman, was saying. It sounded like she was wailing. He looked at me and told me to go check my mom’s phone he had on the side table. When I looked at it, it had missed phone calls from the area code where my brother lives.
I pressed send to return the last call. I heard a gentleman’s voice and I thought it was my brother, “Tav?” I ask the person on the phone. He says ” Excuse me.” I say, “I’m sorry, who am I speaking with? I’m looking for Octaviano Rios. Or Maria Rios.” He says, “O Maria, and you are?” “I’m his sister, her sister-in-law.” In that moment, I don’t remember walking from the dining room table to the front room window while he must have been trying to tell me. I finally, say “What?” As I, what I felt, was trying to open my eyes.
“Basically, he’s dead.” Probably the third time he tells me of the tragic news. I am confused to see myself in front of a window instead of a table but I apologize to him for having him tell me in such a rude way. He tells me it’s okay but if I wanted to, he could give me the information I need to confirm… I stumble for a pen and paper, even though I don’t remember where I got it from, I have a notebook and a pen to begin to write as much information as I can.
I am an administrative assistant, gathering information precicely and accurately is one of the many important part of my job. After gathering as much information he had for me, I am looking at a bunch of scattered phone numbers and scribbles of names of places. At least, I could understand it after I run a check list with him confirming what he needed to let me know. I apologize once again because the whole time, I am shaking so much I could barely write, so I know I was taking my time to do my best so I could understand my own writing.
He tells me it’s okay. That I was doing better than most people he had dealt with, he was an officer who was “babysitting” my sister -in-la because she was so hysterically distraught, he felt he couldn’t leave her alone, and she refused to go to the hospital. I thanked him from the botttom of my, now aching heart. I asked to speak to her. She either couldn’t or didn’t want to. I told him to tell her that I love her and that she is not alone. She has us, if not, me.
During that time my dad had ran to his room to put on some pants because we hear my daughter coming out her room. After that call ended, I call… The morgue. When the person answered, I must have sounded professional because she says to me, “Oh, I picked him up this morning.” In almost a cheerful way. So I said, “Can I talk to him.” She says, “Excuse me.” Her voice was very serious, almost dark, as if I was playing some sick joke. I say, “Um this is his sister and I…”I hear her sigh in relief as she cuts me off.
“I am so sorry I thought you were calling from the hospital because… First off let me confirm you are, his sister? Yea. I do have an Octaviano Rios and maybe you could help us.” She explains to me that she went to a scene of an SUV turned over off the highway. My brother was DOA and there were two other people in the car. I mentioned to her that he wasn’t driving. She asked me how I knew. I old her I just did. She tells me the driver was a women who a got a bad burn across her body from the seatbelt. At that moment anger seathed through my body wanting not know who she is. I was glad she couldn’t tell me and because one of them was a minor.
She tells me she is Winnamucca, she had to spell it for me, Nevada. Never heard of it. She is holding his body because she doesn’t know where to transfer him to. His address says he lives in San Francisco, but to her understanding his wife is in Idaho. She tells me that where his body is is exactly rght in the middle so it would be the same amount of time to get him to either place.Then you have the means of transportation. Since she had picked him up that morning at around 10-11 ( she gave me the exact time but can’t remember now), it was now midnight, it was better to have him flown than driven since it is a four hour drive there and a four hour drive back to either San Francisco or Idaho. I ask her who makes the final decision. She tells me his wife. I ask her how do I do this.
First she apologies again for the way she answered. She admitted she thought I was calling from a hospital. She tells me that when they make the funeral arrangements they will give her a call, so I or anyone in my family wouldn’t have to ever call that place again. There’s a reason they don’t deal with the family of the deceased. Even though she apologized suddenly I started to get angry at her. I walk back to the living room and…
I almost throw the phone at my father. As it sinks in, but my mother instinct goes back into super mom because I notice my daughter who is on the couch in the living room. I could see it sinking into her because we have the same reaction to it sinking. She whispers “My Tio Tavi” and she runs towards me so I open my arms and just hold and listen to her cry. She loves her Tio Tavi.
I always told my children to never open the door to anyone. It doesn’t matter if it was God himself. Do not open the door. At their dad’s house, my brother and their dad were friends, their dad tells me that 2 or 3 times he came out of the he bathroom to find my brother siting in the living room talking and playing with my babies. When I remineded them they are not supposed to open to any one. All they could say was, “But it’s Tio Tavi.” As if he was an exception in my rule.
The thought rushes out of me. I have to be strong for my daughter’s. The baby is looking at us half crying, half smiling as if she was trying to make us laugh so we wouldn’t cry but she couldn’t help to feel us so she wanted to cry. The one in my arms runs to her room. I pick up my baby and she points to her sisters room. Now she’s crying. I take her to assure her that her sister is fine. She looks at me crazy and points at her as if telling me I’m crazy because she’s crying. They stretch out their arms to each other. The baby raps her arms around her sister and I hope the oldest did found some comfort the baby was trying to extend.
I walked out of the room to check on my dad. He is trying to get a hold of my mother’s boss. I almost panic. Don’t tell her. Picturing her on the top floor of the building. Looking confused and repeating what I said, don’t tell her, as if confirming to himself he understands. You have to tell her in person, and not on one of those floors. She can’t be on elevated ground, something about blood pressure, light headed, fainting flashed across my mind. I tell him he has to tell her in person.
He tells me my brother is on his way to pick him up so they could go together to pick her and her truck up. I asked if they had already told her. He said no. Later, my mother told me that her supervisor, and friend, needed to be seen downstairs. She tells me that she got nervous. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Her friend gives a warm smile. She says she felt a panic and begins to ask him questions.
That morning I was upstairs making arrangement with my older son’s father for him to pick up my other son for the weekend. It was his birthday and he was coming to the Giants game so he wanted to come pick up him up after the game. He had tried to get another ticket because the tickets were given to him but they were sold out, but he still wanted to pick my son up. My mother walks into the kitchen after I hung up. She looks worried.
She tells me that my cousin must have taken a wrong dose of his drug or the alcohol is making him delirius. She tells me that he looks really shaken up because he know my sister died in an accident. He tells her he could feel or see it or something. I asked her if she called my sister and she says she’s fine. Mind you we call my sister Tina. I asked her if he really scared her. She lied and said no.
About 30 before her time to go to work, she comes and sits down in the kitchen as I was heating up food. She hadn’t ate and looked a little pail to me. I asked her if she was ok. She lied again. I mentioned her not eating. She lied again. So every mother does the super mom act. I asked her if my cousin had really scared her. This time she didn’t say no instead she repeats what she told me earlier.
I’m eating and she asked me for a taco. I knew was hungry she was too nervous to eat. My cousin hit a nerve this time. Mental note: chew him up and spit him out for making her feel this way. I hand her my plate and heat her a tortilla. She takes a bite of her taco, gobbles it up, and tells me she doesn’t want anymore. She was going to give him a ride. She wasn’t just nervous she was scared. Mental note: kick my cousin to his knees and punch his nose. It made me nervous too, but I went about my day. Come night time, my son gets picked, me and my daughter go to bed so I could read her a book before sleep. That was when the phone rang.
While my dad leaves after my brother picked him up. I called my other brother’s wife back. She answered! She starts crying. I still can’t cry. I ask her about his body she right away tells me San Francisco. I told her that I love her, and waiting for my mom to get home. When I hung up with her, I called my favorite aunt, my dad’s sister to tell her about my brother. She almost got mad because she thought I was playing. You don’t play like that. I told her I wish I was crazy, than to tell that my brother was dead. She tells me she is on her way.
My mom finally arrives, they have to help her out of the car and up the stairs where I open the door and wait for her. She looks at my and says in Spanish, my boy. I hug her and walk her towards the couch. Her phone rings as I help her sit down and I kneel in front. I hear more wailing. It’s my sister, so guess the call my father got was from my other sister. All I could think was: how could I take that pain away from my mother. She looks at me, and for a split second she stops crying and says (in a Spanish of course)
You have no regrets or recentments with your brother.
It set me aback but brought right back because my sister wants to talk to me. I still can’t cry. I let her wail before I give her every piece of information I had. Not soon after my mom, two of my aunts and two of my cousins show up with my aunts husband. My dad puts on some water to boil for coffee or tea. I hear him ruffling in the kitchen. I go to him take over, tell him to go sit with his sisters. After all of that, I had tried calling my niece but it went to voicemail. I finally got a hold of her mother in law who told me everything that happened before his accident. She told me my neither of my nieces wanted to talk to anyone. Told her to tell them that I love them and asked to please take care of my babies for me.
My brother was in a fatal accident on June 9, 2014 just five days after his 43rd birthday. From what the mother in law told me, he had a wonderful weekend with his daughters and grandson. Not even her son was allowed with them. She said he came on a Friday night and left on a Monday morning. For the first time, ever in our lives, he didn’t come home. He didn’t let anyone know he was coming, he didn’t tell us he was here, and he didn’t mention he was leaving. He spent the weekend with the two girls who love him the most and his only grandson. I am glad my son and I didn’t get to see him before he passed because we would have really gone crazy. My only regret was not calling him for his birthday. My only recentment was not seeing him that weekend. Now, every year I cry because I miss him.
Can we create what God did? 