Dear Jeffrey

August 14, 2002
Dear Jeffrey,
Hey cousin! How are you? How are things on base at North Carolina? I really wished I didn’t have to write you this letter. I mean, I always enjoy our letters. But this letter is not like our other letters. I’ve been trying to call you since early Tuesday, August 13.

I just want to tell you that this isn’t how I pictured telling you this. As I said, I tried calling you, and so has your mom. Abuelita Carmela passed away yesterday morning. Again, this letter isn’t like our other letters.

All of us in the family have known that this day would come since she was diagnosed with liver cancer in 1997. I mean the doctors were never able to pin point on how much longer she had to live. They would say “It can be 6 months, a year, or more, or less.” We surely lucked out that we had 5 years.

Jeff, the thought that comes to mind as I’m writing this letter is the day you said goodbye to her this past June, June 3rd to be exact. Remember, you, Alfonso and I went to IHOP to get our last breakfast together before you went off to base. We asked you if you were sure about volunteering these next four years of your life to the army. We told you that there is most likely a possibility that you would be deployed to Iraq. But as always, with your delicate voice, you said you were 110% positive about this choice. I respected then, and still respect it now. Then you came back home to spend time with Abuelita. Then you asked her to give you her blessings before you left, just like she used to do to us when we were kids leaving home for school. You got in your car, and as you drove away, her little hand waved goodbye, doing the sign of the cross. That’s our Abuelita Carmela, our sweet grandmother.

I just want you to know that she did not suffer like other cancer patients have. She succumbed to cancer’s final stage on Monday, July 8. I still find this whole thing so crazy. We had just enjoyed Fourth of July weekend at your house. And as always, Abuelita was drinking her Piña Coladas, with extra rum. She had a great time, and she sang her songs like she used to do when we were kids. It was a great Fourth of July weekend, the best at that.

You know we were never able to tell her she had cancer. How could we devastate her heart in that manner? We made sure she went to her appointments and just told her she needed to get checked especially because of her age. She never noticed anything wrong and we just made sure that she had the best day each day. She said this to me in the hospital “In all of my life, I’ve never had to stay in a hospital bed. My time has come, but that’s ok, I’m ready.”

Don’t worry about me, cousin. So far I’ve been taking this well. I’m watching “The Parent Trap” as I’m writing. Gosh, I really enjoy Natasha Richardson’s British accent, and something about that red-headed, freckled face girl, Lindsay Lohan, just gives me the wrong vibes. We’ll see if she’s a train-wreck in a couple of years.

Abuelita’s funeral will be on Friday, August 16. As I’m writing down the date, it just occurred to me that it’s on my birthday. Now I know that forever and ever, as long as I live, my birthday will never be the same again. Love you cousin, and always remember that so did she Jeff, so did she.

Always,
Stephanie