Funerals in Mexico–Test of Endurance

Sometimes I think that all I write about these days is Death. We’ve certainly experienced our fair share since moving to Mexico. In September, we experienced yet another tragedy.

My husband’s nephew L made a series of poor decisions and was taken from his home in the middle of August. Several weeks later, his body was found in La Barranca, a small mountaintop community that is a municipality of Moroleon.

His body was taken to Celaya for autopsy and returned to his mother’s house in Moroleon at 3 am the next morning. She had cleared out her tortilleria to receive the body. However, the coroner’s report was not sent with the body. Without the coroner’s report, a death certificate could not be made nor a plot in the cemetery purchased. L’s body had already begun decomposing, so time was of the essence.

Therefore, L’s younger brother A went with the funeral home people back to Celaya to await a coroner’s report. My husband and I hoped to be able to speed the burial process along even without the documentation and went to the panteon (cemetery) to see if we could purchase the plot since it was Friday and the offices are closed over the weekend.

We arrived there to find that the girl who is in charge of the office wasn’t planning on coming in that day. We spoke to the caretaker. Several calls were made and finally, we were told that she would be in after all.

We headed back to my husband’s sister’s house to see what else could be done. The civil registry office closes early on Fridays. Brother A returned with the coroner’s report just in time to get the death certificate but the cemetery office was now closed again. The girl promised she would come in on Saturday at 8 am especially for us to purchase the plot, so the funeral was scheduled for 11 am the next day.

That night was the velorio (wake). I have to say I was disappointed in the behavior of the attendees. I arrived a little late and nearly everyone present was either high or drunk. I didn’t stay long. I wonder if it was perhaps the age of the mourners, most were just teenagers, and maybe it being their first death, they didn’t know how to act. When I presented my theory to my teenage son, he pointed out that this wasn’t his first funeral and that he certainly wasn’t carrying on like that. So I don’t know what to think about their behavior.

The next morning, my son and I went to pick up some flowers before the funeral service at the church. Unbeknownst to me, my gas gauge was broken and we ran out of gas on the highway. We had to walk about 2 kilometers to the nearest gas station. Fortunately, the last 1/2 mile or so was mostly downhill and we coasted right up to the gas pump.

We missed the misa (mass) completely but still went to get those flowers and headed to the cemetery. L’s older brother who is working in the U.S. sent enough money to hire a banda (band) to play during the funeral procession from the house to the church to the cemetery, and then continue playing for an hour or so after the casket was covered. Relatives in el norte (U.S.) also sent enough to buy a ground tomb rather than a crypt. It’s twice as expensive to be buried underground.

I can’t say that the mourners’ behavior was any better at the interment than it was the night previously at the velorio. This isn’t my first funeral here, so I know that this was not the norm. There was such volumes of weeping and wailing and screaming that it really was fit for a telenovela (soap opera). The younger brother A. threw himself into the grave at one point and one guy, I’m not even sure who he was, danced on the tombs as the banda played on.

L’s mother was putting on quite a show, which would have been fine since everyone grieves in his or her own way and all that. However, it was now midday and the sun was blazing hot and no one thought to bring any umbrellas for shade. Well, there was one, but it was a child’s umbrella and it barely covered her head. So her younger sister, who was trying her darndest to be supportive and had stayed up since 3 am the previous day to help her sister through this most difficult time, was left without shade and finally fainted. Here’s where all the first aid training I had paid off.

There is one mesquite tree in the entire cemetery which provides only partial shade. Some of the menfolk moved the prostrate sister to said shade. Having just hiked 2 km myself, I still had 1/2 bottle of water I bought at the gas station. This was poured over her head and revived her some. She was still unable to focus or speak coherently. My son and I marched our fannies to the corner store and bought two bottles of suero (electrolytes). I forced her to drink the smaller of the two bottles immediately. She did and by the last drop, she said that the world had stopped spinning.

I decided that her supportive role in the ongoing drama, albeit commendable, was over for the day. The oldest sister supported my decision. So her father and my son half-carried the ailing sister to the entrance area where there was both shade and benches. I bullied her into drinking the second bottle of electrolytes until she was able to respond to questions without her eyes rolling back into her head. There was some talk of taking her to the hospital, which wouldn’t have been such a bad thing, but nothing came of it. She did go home and rest for a while.

Eventually, someone talked the mother into going home and she was given a prescription for some tranquilizers so was able to mostly make it through the novena (9-day prayer session) without completely alienating the entire family.  I’m not sure that you ever recover from the loss of a child, no matter how it happens.

So about L, the autopsy report has not been released as it is part of an open murder investigation. I doubt it will ever be made available. L. had been in trouble before, and in fact, had been kidnapped and tortured and escaped. Despite this, he continued to antagonize the wrong people. He and another young man were taken by those that do the taking around here. No one saw anything. No one knew anything. Without the autopsy report, the family won’t know if he was tortured before he was killed or exactly how he died, which may be for the best, the not knowing part I mean. In having a body to bury, there is some closure. The other young man’s family is still waiting for any information.

The situation where we live has become intense. The cities listed with the highest number of homicides in the first 8 months of 2018 surround us. In August alone, there have been more than 3,000 homicides making a grand total of 22,000 homicides thus far this year. That number doesn’t include Desaparecidos (those that have disappeared). The state in which we live, Guanajuato, has been leading the body count with 1,671 homicide victims between January and August. There is currently a turf war going on between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Santa Rosa de Lima gang.

L was just one more casualty. No one expects the police to find the murderers. After all, the police are up to their eyeballs in this whole business. I’ve seen the impunity that exists before.

What surprised me most was the lack of judgment from the community. It might have been easy to dismiss what happened to L as no more than he deserved. That’s probably true. But what I’ve heard from those who reached out to help, those that attended the funeral service, those that are still trying to do what they can for L’s mother, those that have expressed their condolences, is that each and every one of them realized that it could have been their brother, their cousin, their nephew, or their son. Maybe this realization even inspired the devil-may-care attitude of some of the mourners. After all, they could be next.

So today, el Día de los Muertos we have gone to the cemetery yet again. The grief is still raw and ugly. But we’ve brought flowers for my mother-in-law, killed by a police officer 6 years ago in May. We’ve brought flowers for my brother-in-law, who lost his battle with alcohol last November. And we’ve brought flowers for L, who was once the little boy who called me Tia.