I didn’t attend my grandmother’s funeral. Here’s why.
I was sitting at my desk when I got the call.
I’d moved to Charlotte, NC from New York City just a few months before.
When my phone rang, it startled me.
It’s perpetually on DND, so it never rings; only my close friends and family can get through.
I saw my brother’s name on the screen and my heart started beating so fast I could hear it in my ears.
“Buela died,” he said.
I sat there, stunned. I was expecting it, we all were, but you’re never quite prepared for when it actually happens. I often imagine that’s what birth is like.
Buela had fallen sick in 2020, in the thick of the pandemic (non-COVID related), and her health deteriorated rapidly after that. In 2022, at 89 years old, we discovered a brain aneurysm, for which she had a successful surgery, but she passed about 6 months after that.
I hung up the phone and thought, “damn, now I have to go back home and take care of my family.”
What I meant was that I’d have to go back home and do the emotional labor that’s almost always exclusively reserved for the oldest or the daughter in the family, who is typically groomed from childhood to be the emotionally strong one.
I was struck by this thought.
My favorite grandmother, the spunky lady who helped raise me, who spoiled me and took care of me at multiple crucial points in my life, was gone.
And yet all I could think about was the emotional burden I’d have to shoulder for my family.
I was also struck by the fact that my immediate response wasn’t to pack my bags and be on the next flight to NYC. I felt like I was swimming in molasses, stuck between what I should do and what I wanted to do, which was not go.
The guilt washed over me immediately. How could I be so selfish in this moment of loss?
I tried to convince myself that I didn’t need to go to the funeral because I’d been mourning her impending transition long before I left NYC.
In fact, I knew that her soul was communicating that her departure was near when she asked me to write her memoir back in 2021.
I’d visit her on Sundays, and bring her fresh cheese pastelitos from the bodega in my neighborhood because her love language was gifts, just like mine, and they were some of the best around.
We’d sit together and shoot the shit before I’d open the voice memo app on my phone and she’d recount, to the best of her abilities, her life over almost 90 years.
I learned so much about her. She shared things that she hadn’t told anyone else. I’m still holding some of her secrets.
I also learned a lot about Mami, and it was surreal to see the generational patterns in my family playing out in Buela’s stories.
Spending that time with her was so special.
But rationalizing why I didn’t need to attend the funeral only worked temporarily.
I knew that while I had my own, personal grieving process with my grandmother, my desire to not attend the funeral was much, much bigger than that.
Leaving NYC months prior represented shedding an old version of myself, including breaking away from family patterns that had kept me stuck for a long time.
As I grew emotionally and spiritually, I also started to feel suffocated by the energy of the city, and I longed for a slower pace and a different lifestyle.
Going to Buela’s funeral, not because I wanted to, but out of a duty that I didn’t sign up for, or agree with, felt like going back to the patterns I’d left behind.
In fact, it felt like self-abandonment, one of the ways my core wounds manifested for years, and a way of being I had worked incredibly hard to change.
I felt so AWFUL.
Not going to a relative’s funeral, especially a close one, is just not something we do in my Dominican culture. We organize around familismo, the idea that you do what’s best for the unit or family, not the individual.
I love that about us so much, but I can see how it can also cause harm.
I already felt like I didn’t belong in my family, and have for as long as I could remember. I wondered if not attending would jeopardize my belonging long term.
In the days leading up to the funeral, I’d communicated with family that I wasn’t sure if I’d go. I’d check in via text, and almost daily, the response would be “are you coming?”
Not once did my mother or brother, my closest relatives, ask me how I was doing.
(Yes, not once. I’m not exaggerating.)
In fact, it was only my aunt, my grandmother’s daughter, who inquired about my emotional state.
During one phone call, Mami told me that I should go because the “family should be together during this time” and that she wanted me to say a few words during the funeral.
It sounded logical, but felt performative, like the good daughter with the good English and Spanish and the Ivy League degrees would be on display.
It felt like salt on a familiar wound.
The day finally came when I had to tell Mami that I wasn’t going to the funeral.
I made up an excuse and said I didn’t like funerals and I wouldn’t go. I could hear her disappointment in the long silence afterwards.
We got off the call and I didn’t hear from her for about 3 months after that.
It was a really hard time for me.
I felt like Mami withheld her love, punished me even, because I didn’t behave in the ways she wanted me to. It reminded me of other times during my upbringing that I’d also felt conditional love.
I also felt like there was no space for my pain and loss, even if it looked different than hers. But that tracks for how my family relates to one another.
I was so angry and in time, that anger showed its true colors: a familiar and engulfing sadness.
I thought it would overwhelm me, but that sadness, which little Josie had been carrying for almost four decades, just needed a loving witness. It had so much medicine for me, and I’m so grateful I had the capacity and courage to take it, even if it didn’t always go down smoothly.
Mami’s silent treatment eventually came to an end, and we had a long conversation about what happened. I came clean about the real reason why I didn’t go, with a mix of apology and assertion.
As I spoke about emotional labor, I could hear the confusion on the other end of the phone. The term, so familiar in my world, seemed foreign to her. I found myself grasping for simpler words, trying to build a bridge across the generational gap between us.
It struck me then – the ability to even articulate these feelings was a privilege my mother's generation hadn't been afforded. It was a stark reminder of how our lived experiences can diverge so dramatically, even within the same family.
She explained that she was angry at me because I wasn’t there for her in the way she wanted.
I often think about a timeline where I could’ve said, “I can’t be there for you by going to the funeral, could I be there for you in a different way?”
I wish I would’ve had the wherewithal to say that. I don’t know that that would’ve changed the outcome, but perhaps that wouldn't have been the point. Perhaps it would’ve been an opportunity to practice bravery in a different way.
Despite this conversation, Buela’s passing is still a sensitive subject between us.
And for the record, I love and respect my mother deeply.
I’m not a fan of bashing people, even and especially when they’ve hurt me, and I will never, ever bash my mother.
I feel so much gratitude, compassion and empathy for her. She’s been dealt some challenging cards throughout her life, and she’s done some incredible things, superhuman even. I see so much of her in myself, and it makes me beam with pride.
I can and will always be honest, though.
Her ways of being, living and loving have impacted and hurt me deeply. To this day, she does and says things that make it challenging for us to have a closer relationship. And I don’t fault her. That’s where she is.
I love her right where she is.
I heard Tyler Perry say that trying to get people beyond where they are is like taking someone to an altitude where they haven’t yet built the capacity to breathe, and can die. The best thing you can do is respect and meet people where they are, and help them, if possible, from where you are.
I couldn’t always love Mami where she was at, honestly.
I’ve had to work really hard to restore my fractured sense of self, which helped me see Mami as the human she is, not the fantasy I had of her as a child. When you’re whole, it’s exponentially easier to see and love people without compromising or sacrificing yourself in the process.
As a result, I can be in a relationship with her that no longer harms me, and I love that for us both.
Choosing not to attend my grandmother's funeral, though painful, redefined my relationships, set boundaries, and helped me break free from the weight of unexamined expectations. I also found a way to carry my grandmother's legacy forward, not through obligation, but through conscious choice.
I've come to understand that true respect for our loved ones – both living and passed – comes from living authentically and compassionately, not from adhering to prescribed roles.
In honoring myself, I've found a deeper way to honor Buela’s memory. And in this dance between individual need and family connection, I've discovered a new kind of strength – one that I believe makes Buela proud.
If you, too, are finding your way through this dance, I want you to know that I see you, and I’m rooting for you.
Your big sis,
Josie