T0 The Funeral That Left Me Dead
Savannah Sandoval
I woke up a little late, I tried not to think about what the day was going to be about. It was a dark, gloomy, rainy, day when I woke up; which is perfect weather for a funeral. I got up and got ready for the dreadful day. I took a nice long warm shower; the warm water does a wonderful job of comforting me. I got dressed in my “slutty funeral dress” as my father’s family labeled my dress. I blow-dried and curled my long black hair. Then after I got my curls looking perfectly curly, I topped it off with an insane amount of hairspray and moose. I began to put on my makeup when my father walked into my room and told me not to put mascara on because I would cry it off. Jokes on him I knew I was not going to cry at the funeral. I am unable to explain how I felt about my grandmother’s death. I was not depressed, but I was feeling guilty. Feeling guilty because I was not sad about my own grandmother’s death. My beloved Rosila, my racist grandmother never adored me or my siblings like she did all my other cousins. She despised my whole family except for my father of course. Not to mention communicating with the women was not easy. She was completely deaf, so if American Sign Language was not a first language, good luck chatting it up with her. I hated her for not liking my family. Everyone else in the Sandoval family thought she was an amazing grandmother. I guess no one saw what she was really like to me, or my sister. She hated our family so much in fact that she even hated our dog. Not, because the dog is white, but because my dog loves my mother more than anyone else. We arrived at her funeral and yes, my brother, sister, mother, and I was late. Why would the family even want to go to a memorial for a woman who despised us? We walked in and it already looked like a dysfunctional funeral. We had the priest yelling at our family to hurry up and take our seats so he could get this show on the road. He kept yelling “Take seats. You must hurry we have noon mass”. I really wanted to deck him for screaming at everyone and prioritizing noon mass over a funeral. If I were to have gone through with my actions, that would have been the second time I’ve gotten kicked out of the lord’s house. We all took our seats none of my father’s family bothered to sit with my family of four. They sat to the right of us all together like a big family. They were already sobbing with these fake crocodile tears altogether. I leaned over to my sister and made the snarky comment, “They for real need to chill, the show has not even begun yet”. We laughed it off and then quickly closed our trap (we got the good old death stare from my father). My father’s lovely family are always singling us out but at my grandma’s funeral too. The priest started burning the thurible herb and swinging it all around my grandmother’s box and the pretty flowers everyone purchased for her. I started choking on the thick nasty smelling smoke. I coughed so hard I started crying; that was the closest I got to crying at her funeral. I then witnessed my father crying by himself on my mother’s shoulder because no one else wanted to sit with us. That broke my heart more than the death of my grandma. P.S my family is treated differently because my sister, brother, and I are part white. My mother on the other hand is full white. Her name is Tracy Brown-field the whitest of the white. Obviously, she got the worst treatment out of all of us, the whole Sandoval family hated her. The funeral party sang to the little gold box on the pedestal, the priest threw water on it, and we started the rosary or something along the lines of that. The funeral went by so slow, an hour felt like two hours. It felt like we never stopped singing and worshiping this woman. After the worshipping was over the preacher asked if anyone would like to give a favorite memory of her. I wanted to go up there so bad and say, “my favorite memory of her was when she made enchiladas for a get-together and told my sister and I those might be a little too hot for your kind”. I did in fact not get up and say my favorite memory of her. After the long hours of the lowkey cult session, the funeral was finally over. When I say this was the oddest funeral ever it was so odd. I thought that it could not get any worse or weirder. That was until my crazy aunt proved me wrong once again. My Aunt Jonell (who isn’t even really a part of our family) from my mother’s side of the family came up to my mother and I. She began to hug us and chat it up like we were besties or something. This seems normal it is not in fact normal. My mother and her lovely family were butting heads. I got tired of her so fast that I said my goodbyes. The crazy organic Aunt Jonell who smelled like a walking lavender plant hugged me. She again told me she was sorry for the loss of my beloved Grandma. Someone didn’t know how I really felt about that woman. She then pulled me in and literally hot whispered in my ear demanding that she was given these dumb action figure horses back. She gave these to me when I was eight years old; I am seventeen years old. Personally, I forgot about them, so much in fact that I threw them in a box and put them in the garage seven years ago. I also wanted to smack her and then scream at her. Who knows if I were to do this the crazy lady would come to my house find the box of stupid horses, and then commit a little arson on the house. I simply rolled my eyes at her and said, “yup will get them back to you”, and walked away. That was in fact the last time I saw that crazy lady. The family then said their goodbyes and picked up grandma, and the many beautiful flowers. We left the church as soon as possible to go home away from the toxic family. We got in the car, buckled grandma in, and drove east.
Grandma's funeral was not it.