On the Outskirts of Mourning

I drove down dirt roads for the first time yesterday.  Canvasing the bumps and different grades of dirt was a bit challenging, especially given my low-sitting car with all five of us inside.  Lito made a face as I scraped the bottom of my car--again--only to reverse and let him guide me through.

We asked the man who had his cows tied to the tree if we could park there, because there was no other flat space.  He said yes.

We walked from there through the little neighborhood, with its pentecostal church, tienda, visiting neighbors, and houses built from cement block with tin roofs.  We found her house up the lane.  She was sitting up in bed, watching TV.

We came, my colleagues and I, because her husband was killed this week.  My colleagues wanted to pay her a visit since she used to work with us; though I knew who she was, I was more the chauffeur. We sat all together in her room and listened to her story.  How her husband had left at the normal time.  How he hadn't returned home.  How she had decided not to worry about it. How she found out the next day of his death.  How the newspaper had picked up its story, and how her young son had rifled through the pages under pretense of looking for futbolistas only to end his search when he found the article about his father's death.

She shared that she is feeling sad, of course, but she has a sense of peace.  And these last few months had been good months in her family, having made good memories, ones they can pass on to the little one due later this year.

She is my age.  With one son and another on the way, and now a widow.