Redefining Legacy Work and Tending to Grief

Welcome to our Blog

In keeping with our commitment to eradicate the silence around death-related topics, as we officially launch Floripondio End of Life Planning and Services, we are excited to kick off this blog. We look forward to sharing writing that reflects what we are working on, thinking about, and sitting with as Indigenous Queer death companions. This work is very personal to us, we bring our full selves, heart, soul, and body into it. Therefore, we thought we would start off with some personal pieces to share a bit more about who we are and what has shaped, inspired, and led us to this path. We honor this practice as sacred and radical work and seek to be transformed by putting into words the depth of our experiences. 

Redefining Legacy Work and Tending to Grief

According to Merriam Webster, a legacy is a gift by will, especially of money or other personal property. I was taught to believe that leaving a legacy after one’s death means passing on accumulated financial wealth. As I studied to become a death doula and came to understand through my own lived experience what preparing for and grappling with death can really mean, I learned another definition of a legacy, the passing on of stories, wisdom, and memories. My people have survived and resisted the brutality of colonization and this type of legacy work has been profound for me. This piecing together of story to understand who I am, where I come from, and what legacies my ancestors have left is a part of my own healing journey and in this case, helped me process the death of my grandmother. 

In 2003, I was 26 years old and in a teaching credential program in the Mission District in San Francisco. We were exploring ways to invite our students to bring their lives into the classroom and build literacy through the creation of books. We were invited to do an oral history project on our own families to model for kids how it could be done. Inspired by the assignment, I interviewed my Nana, Julia Reyes, and asked her to tell me why she came to the United States. She told me the story of the birth of her nephew Ralphie and how that led her to leave home. 

My Nana was born in 1911 in Santurce, Puerto Rico. For my whole life we celebrated her birthday on July 4th. However, no one is really sure if that’s the day she was born or if someone chose that date when she arrived in this country. We don’t know since Nana came here without a birth certificate. 

According to her, when she was born they lived on 15th Street, 3 bridges down from San Juan. She described it as the poor side of the lagoon and on the other side were fancy hotels. They could hear the music from these hotels that carried across the water at night. Her mother, Petrona Melendez, was from the Canary Islands in Spain and they say she had red hair. Her father, Ceballo, his last name, was a carpenter. They had 5 children together, 2 boys and 3 girls. He died when her mother was pregnant and my Nana never met him.
 
My Nana explained to me that she was the youngest and the other kids didn’t want her playing with them so she spent a lot of time with her mom, cooking and cleaning. My Nana’s mom grew roses to make a living. She told me that they would bury coffee grounds in the soil to make it healthy so the roses would bloom well. At night my Nana and her family would go to sleep talking because as she said, back then there was nothing else to do without electricity. They got water from the main line and carried it home. According to her, Puerto Rico had a different kind of beauty back then. It was rugged and they had a good life.

(The following is a transcript from the conversation with my Nana.)


In Puerto Rico, our house was like the railroad apartments in New York City, you walk into the front room, through to a bedroom, through to another bedroom and then there was a door off to the kitchen. Back then we had midwives. There were a few hospitals, but no maternity wards. So, the midwife came when my oldest sister was giving birth.  

I was standing in the bedroom with them and the midwife asked, “What are you doing?” I said, “I don’t know, I’m waiting for my niece or nephew to be born.” She told me to get out of there. So, I went out the front door, walked around the house and in the back door, through the kitchen and into the bedroom the other way. At that moment, my nephew Ralphie was coming out. The midwife said, “Okay, you really want to see this, come here.” I saw him being born. He came out, the midwife wrapped him up, and put him in my arms. My god was that love, the son of a gun.
  
My sister’s husband had left to look for work in New York when she was pregnant. She gave birth to the boy and my sister left too. So my mom and I raised Ralphie. Years later, they wanted him back. They wanted him to live with them in New York City. My mom said no, several times. They even came down to Puerto Rico to get him and still she said no. You don’t know him, she argued. Finally, my sister’s husband said he would get a lawyer. My mom said okay, you take him, but only if you take Julia. I remember how it hurt to hear her say that, to have her send me away. I said, “Ma, I’ll be back.”
 
On the cargo boat to New York City, we had a small bed for one person and we both slept there together, holding each other. We were so scared. When we got off the ship there was snow up to my knees. I remember like it was yesterday. The ship was called the San Lorenzo. It was 1929. We left Puerto Rico on a Thursday and we arrived in Brooklyn on a Thursday. It took us one week.  
 
When I got off the ship I was holding my nephew’s hand. I said to him, “Ralphie, we are going back.” He said, “How? Swimming?” We were both crying. Ay, we were crying. But I didn’t go back, I never went back, not to live.
            
My sister got a couch with a folding bed for me when I came. Ralphie and me slept there together. Everyone thought he was my son. He would ask me, “Titi, when are we going home?” I used to say, “I don’t think we are going home.”
 
So, I arrived on Thursday and I started work on Monday. I worked and I worked. I was sewing in a factory. I married Pa and I worked until they told me I had to stay home because I was pregnant with your Titi (Nilda). Back then they didn’t let you stay.
 
I’ve been through four wars here: World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War. I have been through four wars and World War II was the hardest. Yes, those were hard times. We would go and wait in line and they would give us one chicken. A family of three and we would get one chicken for a whole week. Pa would get up at four in the morning and go wait in line. And it was cold. Ay, we had winters back then. Pa would go and I would wake up early and feed Nilda her breakfast and go meet him in line. When I would get the chicken, I would go home and cut it in half. I would make arroz con pollo and soup with the bones. With the other half I would make stew. The three of us with that one chicken would eat for four days.
 
Pa didn’t go to war because he was necessary here. He worked in the shipyard so he was around. He would go to bed before me. I would say, keep the bed warm, warm up my side too. It was so cold. We didn’t have the thermostats with all the different temperatures like they have now. We had one temperature and it was cold.
 
I think back and I’ve had a good life. It’s been hard, but I can’t complain.  
 


When I read this story now, I am so grateful that I sat down with my Nana that day to ask her about her life. I didn’t know at the time that I was doing legacy work and how much it would mean to me to have this story documented after her death. Because of the disconnection within my lineage, I was not raised with stories of who my people are and where we come from. I was not raised to be proud of being Puerto Rican. Part of my healing journey has been to tend to the grief that comes not only with death, but with this ancestral loss. 

I transcribed these words years ago and still have the original audio tapes from the interview. I can’t bring myself to listen to the tapes again though. I’m afraid the sound of her voice will be too painful to hear. I think of my Nana often and picture her and her mom taking care of the roses in their yard in Puerto Rico. I imagine them adding coffee to the soil so they would bloom well and gathering the flowers to sell. Some mornings I take coffee grounds from my kitchen, bring them outside, and bury them in the soil surrounding the rose plants in my garden. Occasionally, I trim the flowers and bring them to the ocean. I pray for my Nana and I ask her to help guide me on my path in this world. I think about how these plants connect me to her and her mother and countless other ancestors whose names I may never know. I ask for the strength to heal myself and to continue putting together the pieces of our family’s story. Maybe one day I will listen to that tape again. For now, I listen to my Nana’s voice in the sound of the waves as they wash away the pink petals. 

melissa reyes death doula

Melissa Reyes (she/they)

Melissa Reyes is a traditional healer, community herbalist, and death companion. They are one half of the Floripondio End of Life Planning and Services team.