Funeral for a Missing Man

When you buried Abuela, there were two caskets instead of one.

Her second husband had disappeared a long time ago, so her funeral was for him too.

You only met him once. (He smelled like dried fruit and malt whiskey. The palms of his hands were like sandpaper, but his veins felt like eels under his skin.)

Both caskets were open at the altar, and while the people lined up behind Abuela’s casket to say their piece to a memory of a living being (and others just wanted the morbid satisfaction of seeing death before them), you went to her husband’s first.

What to say to an empty casket? A memento to a life not lost but missing? In the end, you said nothing, but ran your eyes over the vertices of the casket like it was his body, and not just a hollow reminder.

Your siblings joined you. This was the man that gave your brother his first taste of liquor, the man that gave your sister India ink for her birthday every year. But they didn’t say anything either.

And you held Abuela’s hand, though she was not present to squeeze it back. Hold on tight, mija.