a nameless funeral in the jungle.

I was getting a drink of water from the tap in the kitchen.

This time i was using a cup because my mom always gave me a hard time for sucking the water right out of the tap, what can i say..i was raised in the jungle. The fruit on the tree outside was getting ripe. I couldn’t wait to climb that tree and pick the biggest juiciest tangelo. It was always a race to get the first one that ripened each season. I was already full of plans to sit up there in the branches, tear off the peeling, and let the juices run down my chin with a grin on my face as i devoured each slice. As long as none of my siblings beat me to the first one, my plan was going to work just fine. It was always a waiting game…a huge game of chicken. Out of the corner of your eye you would watch the peel slowly turn from dark green to a yellowish/green shade. If you picked it too soon then you were in for one sour slice after another but if you waited too long then you had to pretend you didn’t care that your brother was the one with the juice dribbling down the front of his tshirt.

I was staring intently out the window, trying to will the fruit to ripen, when uncle Scottie walked through our yard. Growing up in Peru i never really got to know my family ‘back home’, until I was much older. There were a bunch of us ‘gringos’ all in the same boat, living side by side, with limited contact with our extended families. Somewhere along the line kids started referring to adults as “uncle” and “aunt” instead of mr. and mrs., it helped to created a unique ‘family’ bond that still stands today.

I watched uncle scottie labor through our yard carrying in his arms a bundled blanket. As I turned to head back towards the dining room table, something about the way he was carrying that blanket tugged at me. I was drawn by the way he cradled it in his arms, with a careful tenderness. I went to the back door and peered out. I watched the slouching of his shoulders, I could feel the pulse of weariness carried to me across the midday waves of heat.

Uncle scottie suffered from “It”. Its scary to see your friends and ‘family’ get attached by an illness. It was random. What did you eat? What part of the jungle had you just traveled to? Do you remember getting any bad insect bites? Where are you getting your drinking water from? There was no pattern. We were scared because an illness without a name can attack anyone, so we called it, “It”. Later we found out that it was Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which the textbook tells us is characterized as a severe mental and physical exhaustion that is “unrelieved by rest”. It comes with a slew of other problems, but to us it was just “It”.

Uncle scottie struggled to open the back gate and walk into the field behind our house, his hands were full and we had to keep that gate latched in order to make sure that our crafty goats didn’t run helter-skelter through the yard. I walked a little ways behind him, wondering where he was going. He turned right and walked along the barbed wire fence for a little bit. I knew what he was carrying. I closed the gate he had left ajar and walked down the path after him. He veered to the left, away from the fence. I knew what was happening. Uncle scottie stopped and stood there with his back to me. I was 12, I knew what we were doing.

When he turned to look at me weariness and sadness magnified the tears that were brimming his eyes. Uncle scottie started to set down his burden but stopped short and stood there for a minute, holding it. There was a shovel sticking out of a mound of fresh dirt. I didn’t say anything, I just turned and climbed down into the hole. I looked up at uncle scottie for awhile. We didn’t say anything. Uncle scottie slowly lowered the bundle down into my arms. I held it for a minute, Uncle scottie said that he was only two. I placed him as gingerly as I could down on his final resting place. I paused for a moment, then climbed out of the hole. Uncle scottie and I stood there for a minute, we both shed some silent tears in sadness. Then I pulled the shovel out of the fresh dirt and slowly filled the six foot hole. Uncle scottie took turns with me. It was a silent funeral marked with several tears and the sweat of our labor.

Afterwards all that was left to mark a life was a small mound of dirt that slowly sank as time passed. Soon there was only a brown spot and then not even that. I feel a connection to that little boy. I never heard him laugh, I didn’t cling to him as he passed his final moments here and I couldn’t even pronounce his name. Some people live their whole lives hoping to be remembered. I remember that little peruvian boy, and so does uncle scottie.

I went back to watching the fruit ripen, and drinking water right out of the tap but I never forgot that little boy. I never forgot those moments I spent helping uncle scottie bury a child and learning that its ok for grownups to cry sometimes.

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