Sonia Gloria Duarte was born in 1936. She died, surrounded by family, when she was 77 on April Fool’s Day in 2013. On a day where everyone in the world laughs, my family is blessed enough to cry and remember. It’s been 5 years and my obsession with death and its darkness always hits its hardest point on that day, but this year I was not searching for answers. Instead I felt a crack appear within me and saw that it was filled with light, graciously reminding me of everything life has always offered up me. Moments like that are when I feel my Abuelita’s guiding spirit the most. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she passed away with the birth of spring; It would be just like her to leave such a monumental reminder of her presence to our family.

There are moments in our history that serve as sign posts. Monuments left within our memories to remind us of people, places and things: When she was born. When she had our mothers and fathers. When they all immigrated to America. When we were all born. When cancer first appeared, trying to infect us. When we fought back together and it lost and we celebrated. When we became adults and the marriages began. When cancer reared its ugly head again in surprise and we lost her. When the darkness tried to swallow all of us whole. When life reappeared with grandchildren. When we didn’t give up, because we never do; because it’s what she taught her children not to do and what they then each taught their own. And still, more monuments being created every year. Ask me now what I think about Death on this day and all I can and will answer is Life.

There is a lot to be said in being here without her, but she wouldn’t want us to be sad. Remember her, yes. Keep her with you, yes. Never forget her, yes... But also: she would want us to keep searching for our own form of amazing grace and finding it within the sound of the grandchildren laughing with us. Finding it in the mantle of Abuelita being passed down another generation. Finding it within the monuments we’ve built from our memories and the new ones we’ve yet to create. Finding it in the birth of spring when the flowers bloom.