Yesterday I was about to go to yoga in the morning when my aunt and my mother told me they were going to the cemetery to visit my deceased maternal grandmother. I proposed going with them. They were surprised perhaps just as much as myself, my default would have been yoga for sure.
But, as of late, I've been feeling yoga going rote, there is no inspiration or progress, it's just going into practice so that I feel better after practice. What I felt yesterday was an intuitive feeling that I would get more out of a visit to the cemetery than my usual yoga practice.
So we went to Valle de los Ángeles, where my grandmother is buried. She was living in my home when she passed. At the time I was emotionally disconnected from my household and got involved the least amount possible. Before the time of ubiquitous cellphones I remember a friend struggling to tell me my grandmother had passed away. I already knew, and I knew what she was going to say, but for some reason I let her squirm and struggle to say it out loud. When she did I told her "Thanks for letting me know, a friend already told me earlier". Why?
When we got to the cemetery I bought some flowers for her. I wasn't seeking forgiveness, I did what I could at the time, but I was paying my respects. My mother, her brother and sister prayed and told her some endearing words towards her resting place. Then we went to visit my grandfather at a different cemetery.
In his final resting place were a couple of different crosses. One of them said "familia Pérez". When my grandfather was young, he got the live-in maid pregnant. The family paired her with another household worker (last name Pérez) and this branch of my family had drifted apart some time ago. It would be far from the last liason my grandfather would get into, by accounts of my family, they are officially five children, but out of the records it could be between 19 and 21. I never met my grandfather, he died years before I was born, from cirrhosis stemming from alcohol abuse.
I could sense less affection at this stop. No personal words spoken, just praying for his soul to rest in peace.
Weeks ago I was speaking with a friend who is into self-development. Her family is complicated. Self-healing requires a degree of family introspection. She said she had transcended it without having to look into it. I smiled: in some cases this is true, some problems are so gnarly, it is best to leave them for another life.
My parents have done a tremendous amount of personal work in order to not only forgive, but be grateful to their parents. Whatever injustice I can recriminate to my parents, was done tenfold to them by their own parents. They have done their generational trauma work to the highest degree, and thus I can heal my relations in my lifetime, I don't have to put it off because my parents are unwilling to put in the work.