Something Between

This is not your typical rompecabeza.

This puzzle begins whole, a picture that snaps into shape the night of my cousin's wedding in a rustic open-air church in Xcaret, Mexico.

I'm standing behind my cousin Teto, next to my tia Lilia who sits next to her daughter, who sits next to my brother who sits next to my prima Imelda and so on and so forth, a chain of family wrapping itself around every pew.

The Bride's side is so full my cousin Yanina jokes that, "este barco se va por este lado, the boat's gonna tip this way."

My mother is at the podium reading a verse. In the distance you would swear that she was my Abue or any one of my six aunts. What I see Teto hears, it is the sound of his dead mother's voice calling to him through my mother's visage.

"Let us remember those who have departed Rosa Maria," even though it has been many years since her death this bull of a man with the back of a tight end heaves and sobs as though it were yesterday. I rub Teto's back, I squeeze his hand.

As we file out of the church he is still deep in the memory of his mother.

"When I heard your mother's voice," he tells me, "se me rompio el corazon, it broke my heart."

The first piece in this puzzle.

The second piece he tells me is that on his drive back from serenading my cousin Mayumi on the eve of her wedding alone in the darkenss my tia spoke to him once again,

"Porque no le cantaste Adivina mi'jo, Why didn't you sing her the song Imagine my sweet son?"

"Ah si Mama, seria perfecto, yes mama it would have been perfect,"as he crawls into bed it is this song that hums him to sleep.

Adivina the same song that plays tonight as Mayumi kneels before the Virgin Mary on her wedding day, the coincidence is all too much.

And the final piece of the puzzle is me he says.

"Prima do you remember your Quincenera, your fifteenth birthday, when I serenaded you con Mariachis on Abue's front porch so long ago? I will say that your profile today in this church is still as dulce, sweet, as it was 19 years ago."

"This is the puzzle mi hermana that comes together here as I sit in this primitive place on Mayumi's wedding. I look out at the silhouette of this family and I say to myself that I am not alone on this journey. I have all of you. And you have all of us. These tears are not of sadness."

I'm not sure why Teto's words of all the beautiful things that were said that evening are the ones that I have chosen to go to sleep with at night now that I am back from my trip. I think it is because he reminds me that there cannot be love without loss and there cannot be loss without love.

If I stand back for a moment what does this puzzle look like that my cousin has put together before me?
I decide there is not a clear picture of one person, mi tia, my mother, my cousin or one geographical place the church on a hill, my abue's homestead, the balcony of an eager bride but rather something entirely new, an indescribable feeling altogether something beautiful vacillating between love and loss.

P.S.

I know that I cannot do justice to the words of my cousin Teto in this story. It is lost in translation. I find it impossible to adequately describe the profound feelings I felt on my trip to Mexico just days ago. After reading this piece, the Docta reminds me, "Bud there are a million back stories to every story that you tell here. I'm not sure people are going to follow this."

I tell him, "you are right and it doesn't matter. This is a story I have to tell for myself and thank God it makes sense to me."