In the 27 years of my life, I've been a sepúlturéro for 9 years up until now. Since our family lives besides the cemetery, we took advantage of our place and made a living out of it.
My mother sells candles and flowers which she made and grow herself. The flowers are pretty with different varieties and a very nice fragrance. Because of that, we have one regular costumer who have been satisfied with our service and kind enough to help my mother build a mini flower shop. I guess that's the result of my mother's green tumb after all.
My father is a sepúlturéro like me. He is the one who taught me how the job works and guide me to keep my work done properly. When I was a kid, my father used to tell me a story about him when he was just starting as a sepúlturéro.
Sepúlturéro is not much of a hard job. When there is a funeral, a sepúlturéro 's role is to burry the coffin and do the gravestone of the dead. We also serve as the keeper of the cemetery.
Just like me, my father started as a sepúlturéro when he was 18. Back then, the cemetery was just 2 yrs built so the number of graves are considerably small. There is this one girl that my father usually talks about. She met her infront of her brother's tomb, right after the funeral. All the people in that area already left and the girl was left alone, still crying. That exact scene was never new to a sepúlturéro like my father. Being a sepúlturéro means that being used to see pain and sufferings from the family of those who passed away.
All my father could do was to stay a few meters beside her; bow his head while listening to her silent whimper.
"He died because of me."
The girl spoke which made his head turn her way.
"It was supposed to be me who will get hit by that truck. It was supposed to be me inside that coffin."
The girl was no longer crying. Yet her words was full of pain.
"Death is unexpected. It can happen to anyone anytime. You, being alive means your time hasn't come yet. I believe your brother would not be happy to see you blaming yourself."
"You need to keep moving forward. For your brother and for yourself."
That was the day were they started to write their own story.
She was my father's first love. And probably until now, his love for her still remains. And no, that girl wasn't my mother. But I do know that my father loves my mom genuinely. And mom knows everything about them and accepted every inch of their story.
The girl moved to different states so they had to end their story. She left, but her memories with my father remains.
My father keep telling me that if I found the girl I see my future with, never let her go and fight together with her. Never waste time with silly things and prove that my love for her is greater than any love someone could give. That's when I realized about my father's biggest regret. It was that he never tried to stop the women he loved. He just let her go without fighting for his love and with a heavy heart, he was forced to move on.
It was a great yet sad story. When I heard it for the first time and as a kid, I never really thought about it as something significant.
Now that I am an adult and have someone that I like, I couldn't get my father's advice out of my mind.
Everytime I do my morning patrol around the cemetery, I always see this girl sitting infront of a tomb but doesn't really pays much attention with the tomb itself. It was as if she's always waiting for someone and that tomb was just their meeting spot. She always smile at me whenever I passed by and at first, I couldn't understand why my heart would skip a beat whenever I saw that smile. It was genuine yet I could sense the sadness behind it. Perhaps because the person she's always waiting for never came.
Today is just like any other day. I came to the cemetery to do my morning patrol and look for that one tomb to see the girl I like. Unexpectedly, the girl I was looking for wasn't there. I decided to take a closer step to the tomb to see the name engraved in to it.
"You're here."
My intension were stopped by the soft voice behind me. I look behind only to find out that the voice belongs to the girl I've been looking for. She smiles at me and sit right in front of the tomb while providing a little space beside her.
"You can sit with me."
I could hear my own heartbeat like it was about to burst. I sat beside her and wished that my heartbeat won't reach her ears because it would be embarrassing.
"He never came."
The girl spoke and I realized that I was right when I thought that she was always waiting for someone.
"I want to see him and tell that I never blamed him for what happened to us."
I felt a slight pang of pain. Does it mean that she already have someone she loves? Does it mean that I do not have a place in her heart?
"A while ago, I decided to find him. That's when I figured out why he never came."
So that's the reason why she wasn't here before I came.
"He's now living happily with his family. Then I realized that there was no point of telling him about it at all. Knowing that he's now moved on and living his life to the fullest makes me really happy. After all, it's been a long year since our story ended. I'm happy that I was able to see his smile again because I never did when I decided to leave."
Her words was mixed of happiness and pain. But I can sense the sincerity. God, how painful is it to see your love one with someone they love?
"My father used to tell me that if I love someone, never let her go and fight for her. But I guess that doesn't really apply at times like this. You're a kind woman and a brave one. Seeing someone you love with somebody else must have been really painful yet you said those brave and sincere words without even a single trace of regret."
Her eyes started to moist so I smiled at her.
"It's okay to cry. Cry out the pain but you have to keep moving forward. Continue to live for yourself and for the one who are meant to be with you. Keep moving and in the right time, you will find the right man for you."
She stares at me for a second and I was startled when she suddenly let out a small laugh.
"You talk exactly like him."
She stands up and started to walk away slowly.
"I hope I find him. Thank you for listening. I'll start moving forward from now."
She look back at me and smiled. I couldn't say something. I'm out of words and I didn't even say my goodbye nor ask for her name. All I could do was to look at her back as she was slowly fading away from my sight.
The next day, I was in a hurry to go to the tomb were she usually sit but there was no sign of her. I was about to go back in my patrol when I noticed the flowers that was in front of the tomb. I'm pretty sure that it was a flower from my mother's flower shop.
"This day is his death anniversary."
My father gave me a pat at the back and stand beside me.
"I lost count of how long it has been since he died but I could never forget what day was it. It was the same day that I met his sister, the same day I fell in love for the first time."
"This used to be our meeting spot. When I learned 8 years ago about the death of the girl I loved, I came here and talk to her brother's tomb. I apologized for not keeping her and told all my regrets. Now, I learned to accept our fate and I'm happy that you and your mom are here with me. I hope she's happy now in heaven together with her brother."
He said smiling while looking up at the sky.
That's when I realized how powerful love can be.