“Blessed are those who mourn.” I woke up hearing this during the sermon, where Father was citing the beatitudes. I usually didn’t fall asleep during mass. But perhaps that’s a lie, because I was always ‘asleep’, eyelids shut or not.
A few days earlier:
Therese’ hair danced about in the wind, as it gushed up again over the hill. My bangs would make their way between my teeth as the wind blew in cool gusts. It was cloudy, and even though it was only late afternoon, it seemed fairly dark; the burrows and the trees were quiet, as they seem to be on such a day when the light is dim, makes everything look black and white . The wind began to die down into little wisps, and then left altogether. Finally Therese could tell me the news, my curiosity was eating at me from the inside. Therese however, begin to muse on the wind, telling me that where she had come from, wind would have been a lovely relief to the sitting heat, but now she could appreciate it for its beauty alone. I had never understood how the wind would be beautiful. Therese had been picked up from the Southern slums when she was eleven (I was four at the time) and yet she could still remember her old home as clearly as if she had left yesterday. She never spoke about it in detail, even where exactly it was besides the general southern direction. My parents wouldn’t tell me either. She has scars on her two arms that run a foot down from her shoulder blades. She said it was an identifying mark you received as a worker in the slums. I’ve been told we are distant cousins, but I have no idea why my Grandma and my parents of all people are her guardians. I actually look a lot like her, which I’d always thought was strange. She has stayed at my Grandma Mary’s ever since she came here: twelve years now. My parents were not fond of her, and never supported her. Therese was left to manage for herself. I wasn’t sure why but frankly there wasn’t much I knew about my parents. My dad was an important official for our quite a few regions in the North, and my mother was his secretary. And so I mostly stayed with Therese and Grandma Mary and barely knew my parents at all.
Nobody told me much about anything, and I was used to it. Luckily, I was not really a very curious person, or very active. Although Therese and I got along pretty well somehow, she was pretty much my opposite. She was involved in all these prayer groups and missionary organizations. I went to one of her meetings, and the topic was so sad and depressing I left early. I felt that I was just ‘not strong enough to handle all that’. Other people were meant for that job, I guessed; Therese being one of them. What could I contribute anyway? People didn’t generally label me as a passionate person. I liked quiet and my calm lifestyle-with an endeavor here and there-it’s not like I could help anything anyway. But I had always admired Therese. I wondered that, if she used to live in those slums, how she could be constantly thinking about them and praying about all that? I had never understood it... but yes I admired it. At the moment Therese had a broken arm, for the second time. I was hoping she would get the cast off soon, there really wasn’t much I could do with her with it on.
Therese would be leaving to teach again, and I wouldn’t see her until Christmas. Perhaps she had to tell me she would be getting the cast off and leaving sooner; it was usually something like that. I expected her to hurry up with the boring explanation, but instead she hesitated, stared at the ground, and twiddled with grass shoots as though they were the most important things on earth. I coughed a little too loudly, and finally she began to mumble a little:
“Family...vis...visiting.”
“Could you please use articles?”
After hesitating, she said:
“My family is visiting.”
“What does that mean? What family?”
There was silence.
“Are you trying to play me or something. It doesn’t sound like you…”
“No, you know, it’s complicated.”
In an effort to make something rational of out of my confusion, I said;
“Well, you know me, if it has to do with your prayer group thing I’m lost...the world is your family right?”
“Haha. Umm, no Miel, I mean my real family...my parents.”
I was still confused, but I tried not to show my annoyance because of it.
More silence.
“From…” I couldn’t finish.
“Yes from the slums, just say it…”
“But I thought they were de-”
“I never told you they were dead.”
I got up and paced up and down, fidgeting. I knew that Therese could spot the indignance in my face. I had always been annoyed that she never talked about her birth-parents, and now I am told out of nowhere that her parents are still in contact and... visiting.
“Miel?”
“And you’ve told my parents?”
“I’m afraid we need to keep it from your parents. It will only be for a day, and then they will go back…”
I was confused about the thing with my parents, but assumed it was because she thought my parents would make things awkward, or more complicated perhaps…
“I am giving them money”, she said suddenly, “enough to buy a better house there”.
“Enough to buy a house? That’s like all your savings-more than that even. Ask my parents to help-”
But I stopped: my parents would never give any money. They already didn’t do much for Therese.
She said nothing. She had obviously already made the same realization.
“Well, you don’t need me to add to the sum...do you? I mean I do have to send to the islands every year.”
Therese just nodded, I couldn’t follow her expression. Another silence followed from her, and I obliviously interrupted it.
“Well, how about my parents? Haven’t they been supporting your parents?” I wondered why my parents had never let Therese’s family live with us, I assumed mom and dad didn’t know they were still alive, and the idea was too ridiculous anyway. The Southern government probably wouldn’t allow adults to immigrate without a lot of contracts and binding legalistics, even if my dad was a government official.
Therese ignored my question. I assumed the answer was too obvious, my parents didn’t know her family was still alive-it was blatant. Still, this left a lot unexplained: Therese’s cold attitude, my parent’s dislike of her, why exactly she had to come to our family. In truth, I didn’t really want to know, I was sure getting involved would be too much for me. Therese interrupted my thoughts abruptly:
“I need you to drive me to the meeting place. Grandma Mary still isn’t back from her trip-she still has the car, and plus...” She lifted her arm slightly in explanation.
Expressing my frustration monotonously, I said, “Why can’t you just tell my parents?”
“I’d just, prefer not to. Please don’t tell them-I know I am asking you a favor, but just don’t. I’ll keep you out of trouble.”
“I don’t know…” I decided I had better just stick to my usual rule and not ask questions, besides, I owe her lots of favors. Anyways, it always worked out when she was in charge.
“Alright, I will drive you.”
“Thank you. We’ll go after Mass, when your parents are busy socializing.”
“Right.”
Therese smiled. She kissed me on the forehead, looked at me apologetically, and walked off.
I felt a little dumbstruck. Were her parents really coming? I guess I should go with her, surmise the situation, and then maybe tell my parents. Perhaps Therese was acting a little whimsical again, and it would be for her own good.
* * *
We were riding in the car in silence, just reaching a mile from the church. Hills, almost pure green, surrounded us with rings of softer, green-hued trees wrapping themselves like a myriad necklace around them. The sun was soon to set, and the dim light shone through the tresses of the branches in soft rays, burning softly on my pants till I found myself curl up a little in the driver’s seat. “In the North it is usually beautiful like this day, so common that it is not as beloved, perhaps as it should be, but to the south, because of the rarity of beauty, it is more beloved”, Therese used to say to me when I was smaller than her. Now grown into peer-hood, the same person interrupted my thoughts with more hasty words of advice:
“Listen, I need you to leave right away. Right when I get there, promise me!”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
Therese just held out her hand for me to shake it.
“Wow, the old fashioned way.”
“They are often the more reasonable.” She let a slip a quick smile.
She was making me uncomfortable, and I shook her hand, perhaps out of that uncomfort, perhaps out of something else.
“Ok, so why do I have to leave?” I said.
“Because if you don’t you will wind up in trouble, and I made a promise not to get you in trouble.”
I saw a kind of guilty look on her face, and it puzzled me. Therese had never given that expression in her life...well, maybe once or twice. She was normal after all, if normalcy was defined by mistakes.
“Did you hear the sermon today?”, she said randomly.
“I was kind of thinking about your family. It’s a pretty shocking thing for me.” Actually, I had been asleep, and I was lying.
“Hmmm...”, she responded in politeful doubt of what I had said. “ Well, Fr. Frederick was reading the beatitudes.”
“Yep.” That much I knew.
“ ‘Blessed are those who mourn.’ Christ says this and he means those who deserve to mourn themselves, but perhaps he doesn’t exclude those who don’t suffer themselves, but mourn for the suffering of others. If we were all to mourn in love for the hardships of others, than we are blessed ourselves. This is not because of the absence of suffering, but because of suffering itself. If we do not mourn, then we cannot accept. If we do not accept, then we cannot understand. And if we cannot understand, then we cannot bless anyone or let ourselves be blessed. ”
She stopped.
It was the age old speech it seemed. Gibberish to me, but I had my usual answer prepared:
“I don’t know, it’s too much to think about all this in detail. We just psychologically can’t, we have to take small steps, you know.”
You are indifferent, she almost seemed to say, but instead she said,
“Have you ever suffered that much Miel?”.
I felt myself tense up slightly.
“That much? As what?”
“Ten times than what you usually suffer.”
“Again Therese, we just can’t always think about it, psychologically-”
“I know Miel, we can’t always think about it, because we ourselves suffer. But, if we cannot think about the suffering of others, how can we help ourselves? If we cannot help ourselves, how can we help anything?”
She was speaking with that philosophical rhythm.
I felt like I was being preached at, but somehow I didn’t think it was for me, it was for Therese that she herself spoke. I received in a different way.
Therese directed me to the left, and we approached a run down neighborhood. It was a district that had been evacuated because of the mine collapse and the council had refused to fix it: ‘too small of an area’ apparently. Now uninhabited. I saw a run down van on the outskirts of the town and two hispanic looking men. What were those people doing there if they weren’t Therese’s parents? I pointed them out to Therese (gazing far in the opposite direction):
“Oh my gosh, those people look like rogues from Zorro. Why do evil people always look Spanish?” , I said in tone that almost mocked my own joke.
Shaking her head in artificial sophistication and giggling was Therese’s comforting reaction, but then her face dropped (reminding me in my strange thoughts of the surreality of a guillotine) when she saw them. She took the wheel with her unbandaged hand and veered to the right, while also managing to punch the gas. Probably the quickest game of ‘one-man’ Twister I’d ever witnessed. Oxymoronic. We skidded about ten feet., and I found myself driving with five times more celerity than my parents ever did in their most desperate situations. I felt my head flash hot and my underarms suddenly sweaty.
She quickly thrust an odd piece of clothing at me from the back seat.
“Wait what is...you have a bulletproof vest? Why are you giving it to me?”
“No time to explain.”
Definitely ‘movie-talk’, I thought. I suspected she was playing a joke on me...
We were far into the forest outside the rundown district when I got the vest on. Another smaller van was there, with a dark-skinned couple sitting on the ground beside it, timidly. Therese told me to stop and we got out quickly. I just stood there awkwardly as Therese embraced them hastily, but sensitively. There was no doubt they were her parents and my ‘practical joke’ state was quickly gone-like taking a cold shower after drowsiness. She ushered them into our car; I think she was whispering in a different language. There were so many things she hadn’t told me. Her parents were suspicious, and hesitated. They were asking Therese questions, probably to gain absolute assurance she was their daughter.
It was depressing to see them forced to be suspicious. Therese was not empathetic at that moment: she started ‘shouting’ at them and left me rather shocked. It might have been one of the first times I’d heard her with such frantic intensities. After having a vibrant yet fortunately short-lived discussion with Therese, the parents finally noticed and then scrutinized me, their faces transforming into shocked expressions. They asked Therese another question while pointing to me. Then they started to tear up. I felt a little strange after that. It must be a cultural thing, I thought. For a few moments there was silence, like the silence when you’re alone with a stranger, then Therese motioned for me to get in the van, and was obligated to drag her unforthcoming parents towards it. For the moment it was comical, but then a shot, clearly a gunshot, sounded and everybody froze. The wind blew suddenly making the dirt fly and wiping the sweat off my neck .I could almost hear my heartbeat proliferate. When the next gunshot fired I started to run without thinking. Therese shouted at me, but still I kept running. I was getting thicker into the forest, and it was only half a minute before I heard the van start: Therese must have been coming after me. Then I realized how stupid it had been of me to run, now I had no idea where I was. I stopped and caught my breath. Of course, I began to convince myself there was a shooting range somewhere near me, even though Therese’s somewhat petrified expressions back in the clearing had told me otherwise. My hands went to my sides as I thought about what to do next. Then I felt something in the bullet-proof vest I had forgot I was wearing. In the pocket there was a little box, and at the bottom of the box my name was written: Miel. It wasn’t exactly Therese’s writing, but my gut told me she had put it there. Suddenly I felt ashamed, how much of a coward I had been towards her all these years, yet Therese was more of a friend to me than anyone I had ever known. Crack. I woke from the daze of deep thought. Something crashed over my head and seared like a thousand fingernails scratching and hot water falling. I clenched the box in my hand as the forest blurred and dwindled away. Black.
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