Living Memories

My Mamang, Carmen Vargas Borra, was cremated earlier today. My father summed the sentiments of the family best by thanking the well-wishers not for merely sharing our family's loss, but for coming to celebrate Mamang's life.

In totally unrelated news, I've just given my sisters (oh right, my favorite sisters) new snazzy nicknames. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet, in chronological order, my sisters P. Foozle, J. Bizzle, and Tamika Foxy. And yes, grief affects people in different ways. I'm happy that Mamang is finally reunited with my Papang in heaven, but as that old soul, Pablo Neruda, so beautifully put it (albeit in a totally different context):

Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.
(Love is short, forgetting is so long.)

Mamang, we remember. You live on in us.

Excerpt comes courtesy of "Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche" ("Tonight I can write the saddest lines") by Pablo Neruda, from Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair).