Grief Sand

Grief, joy, and Bad Bunny

I feel so up to my ankles in grief. I’m trudging through the quicksand we all feared in childhood and I’m periodically getting stuck. They told us that if you try to pull yourself out of quicksand, you’ll sink faster. So may as well sit.

My uncle, my godfather, passed away last week. He was battling extremely painful cancer but we all, maybe foolishly, thought we had more time with him.

About 5 years back I started calling him my “Tiopani” because that’s what my mom’s cousins called my abuelo as he was their uncle and godfather. It’s a made up mix of the two. My uncle Phil was my Tiopani. We went and saw him on Christmas Eve in the rehab facility and I wrote on the nurses white board, “I love you Tiopani.” I set up his phone charger and noise canceling headphones because I didn’t know what else to do to be useful. He had just had surgery to remove some of the cancer that was pressing on his spine. He was on painkillers and his voice was weak but he still sang anytime anything reminded him of a song lyric. He still laughed.

I told him, “Tiopani, you were the first person who could tell me I could sing.” He remembered. One night when I was home from college at my parents house, after singing around the piano, he asked if I could make a really silly noise with the back of my throat. It is the sound of dragging your fingers across a comb. The low gurgling “Ahhh ahhh ahh” sound. I could do it and he said, “that means you can carry a tune.”

I was in school for Journalism and Creative Writing and didn’t think I’d ever write music and definitely didn’t think I’d ever sing. But my Tiopani was magical, and he believed you could do anything.

He was always at the piano. When I was little I laid under the baby grand at my grandparents house watching the wood move as he played. I dreamed about what life could be. I often find myself wishing I could be under that piano again, not knowing.

I have so much to say about him but as I sit here writing, in Spencer’s studio while he does a vocal comp, I’m starting to cry and I want to hold it together enough to keep writing.

But what I will say is that he was joy personified. He did everything to the silliest extent and was often, annoyingly, the loudest in the room but without being the person saying “look at me”, begging for attention. Everyone was naturally drawn to him. The only boy in a family with 4 sisters. He was good at both empathy and teasing.

So as I’ve been thinking about him nonstop, I can’t help but feel joy. Joy that he ever existed. That he persisted after his wife died of cancer in 2017. He still laughed, he still played music.

I’m in the quicksand but at the same time I’m just so happy. I just had my 30th birthday with my parents, and best friends, and partners. I feel so grateful for this life we have built and to be here right now.

At Spencer’s Zaid’s funeral, Spencer’s cousin Leah read a part from a Mary Oliver poem:

“We shake with joy, we shake with grief.

What a time they have, these two

housed as they are in the same body.”

It’s weird to do both simultaneously. I feel normal, I feel happy, but the grief seeps through.

I was cooking pasta last night watching Tik Toks and listening to music when Bad Bunny’s new song “DtMF” came on.

I barely speak Spanish but I got the gist right away. This extremely joyous, up beat song with group vocals was somehow talking about the departed. About wishing for more time.

I looked up the full translation and played it through again. I had to sit down on the kitchen floor and cry. I didn’t think I’d ever sob to a Bad Bunny song.

“I should've taken more pictures when I had you

I should've given you more kisses and hugs whenever I could”

It felt so magical and right to be crying to reggaeton. The song is so encompassing of intense grief and regret and joy I feel all at once.

I want to get drunk and party with my family. But I also want to honor what those who have left us are missing out on. How do I do all those things together?

I don’t know but DtMF feels like an answer. (From another 30 year old Puerto Rican, nonetheless).

There’s been so much loss. I can’t bear the fires in LA. I have climate grief. I’m scared for our country. I miss my family and friends that are gone.

But life keeps lifeing, we keep dancing, we keep smiling in photos and kissing each other.

I can promise that what this season of life, full of loss, has cemented in me is that I never want to stop dancing and hugging my friends, and telling them often how much I love them.

Can you sit in quicksand and dance bachata at the same time? No choice but to find out.