Good Things Happen in the Dark

This is a rough draft about my time in Xochempich. Once I finish writing something I have to put it down and come abck to it later. But I didn´t want to keep you waiting too long so I´ll let you see it in its first stages. If you have any criticisms, large or small, please let me know. Enjoy.

Good Things Happen in the Dark

That was the name of a song on my childhood favorite, Muppet Babies. I don´t even remember who it was, but one of them was afraid of the dark, and so the others sang this song, "Good Things Happen in the Dark." They explained that without the dark there would be no drive-in movies, moonlit serenades or fireflies. And it seems to me that here in Mexico the same is true.


I could tell that she was going to say something about my legs.


Femia and I had come to the family´s palapa to check on the feverish Diego and his dying mother. On the less than a minute walk there, Femia said to me, or maybe to no one in particular, "She was one of my best friends here." And then matter of factly, "She is one of my best friends here." It was painful. The hug for Diego warmed my body with infectious heat. The sounds of his mother´s labored breathing chilled my core. She lay in her hammock, surrounded by a slight stench of the cancer that was eating her body alive. Though unconscious, Femia spoke to her, "Margot." Louder, "Margot." Her breathing changed, quickened. "She can hear you," Diego assured us. There was fluid in her lungs, that was obvious from the rattle. I cannot imagine sleeping in the same room with my dying mother, with an audible reminder that she was in pain, that she was dying.


It was one of the aunts, and she had actually gotten up from her chair and was coming over to where I was sitting, legs crossed. I could tell by her gaze that this had something to do with my legs. Great, I thought. She is going to ask me about the excema on my ankles just like everyone else. And since there is no word for excema in Spanish (that I know of), I will explain once again that it is like an allergy on my skin. Instead, she cradled my calf between her dark, calloused hands and her face lit up when she said, "Que bonita." How beautiful. "Son grandes. Y blancas," she said, drawing out each word for emphasis. She liked my "large, white" legs. All I could do was laugh. Only in Mexico would that be a complement.


The lights had been out since three in the afternoon and Femia was getting worried about the meat in her freezer. Sitting out on the porch we gleaned the last of the light, she for her knitting, I for my lesson plan. I was teaching a class on first aid to the nursing students, in spanish. Talk about in the dark. When our eyes couldn´t stand the strain anymore we went inside to look for candles (which we obviously should have done earlier). With one in hand, we went once more to visit Margot, stepping carefully over the stones that lead the way to the palapa. There, candles were wedged in the rafters. It was hard to see her face but hard to ignore the breathing. Silently, we were all wishing that tonight would be her last.

Federico didn´t have a match nor did his candle have much of a wick. He´s a wonderful and caring doctor- the kind I hope to be if I ever get into medical school. But I was not shocked at his lack of preparation. While I did surgery on his candle, he sat down on the porch and began talking with Femia and I. It was one of those times where my Spanish just clicked. I wasn´t thinking, I was just talking. "What made you choose your university?" he asked me. "I wanted a small school," I told him. He laughed when he found out that small meant 2,500. "Why did you go to medical school in Puebla and not in Merida?" I asked when it was my turn. "I wanted a big school," he said, and they laughed. "Actually it was because I flunked out of school here." Good things.

At three in the morning, I lay in my hammock. I could not sleep for the dog which had decided to start barking incessantly. After a minute of so, I thought, Doña Margot has died. "Do you believe that dogs can sense when a person´s spirit leaves their body?" one of the nurses asked me next day after I told her this.

The funeral was one of those things that you wish despirately to capture in pictures but know that only words are appropriate. Around seventy people, virtually all of Xochempich, formed a mass of flowers and silence that moved slowly down the road to the cemetary. No one was wearing black. Or church clothes. There was no slideshow of pictures. Only a few simple words from the pastor, some song and some prayer. The friends of Doña Maria Clara "Margot" Chan Mis filed by to throw flowers into the still-open casket. Diego had none. Just as the last of the flowers were being tossed, someone handed him one, and as he reluctantly let it fall to his mother´s body, I saw him cry for the first time.

Walking back the mood was lifted. Later Diego came over and we ate empanadas and watched soccer on tv. Somehow, as we were sitting around talking after the game, Ted snuck away and found a water gun. We found the other two and were soon engaged in a no holds barred watergun fight which took place in and around the house. By the time we were mopping up the kitchen floor we were laughing so hard that I couldn´t tell if my face was wet from the water or the tears.