Rosita has absolutely no idea what happens to people after they die; she has never pretended that she did, and before she came to Duplicity she was ever more certain that it was nothing. This place, of course, blows it all entirely out of the water but she hasn't been able to work that in yet, so she ignores it for the time being.
She feels the heaviness beside her before she actually consciously registers that he's wiping tears away, but she knows what to do with that. She sits, and she makes space, and she acknowledges that no matter how many people she's lost she does not know what he's feeling right now by not saying a single word about it.
When his grief has risen to the point he might make some kind of noise, sniff or cough or something else, she starts talking in a low, steady voice.
"When I was a girl, Mama had what felt like entire photo albums of our ancestors, and we'd build our ofrenda together, and she'd tell me stories as she set out each picture. Some of them were stories that had been told to her by my abuelos, her parents, and to them by theirs. Some of them were her own. It let us keep our family close, which is really the point even if you don't believe in the dead being able to find their way back in any real way." She wishes she'd had more patience for it, then, but children rarely do, and then her mother's picture was added to the display.
"I've lost... so many people. It's hard to think about them all so I usually don't. I just keep going because if I let myself miss them, I think I'd lay down and die too. It's the same for most people back home. But I still think about those stories Mama told, and... I think maybe there's space for it, now. Here. If we want there to be."
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Date: 2022-11-09 02:36 am (UTC)She feels the heaviness beside her before she actually consciously registers that he's wiping tears away, but she knows what to do with that. She sits, and she makes space, and she acknowledges that no matter how many people she's lost she does not know what he's feeling right now by not saying a single word about it.
When his grief has risen to the point he might make some kind of noise, sniff or cough or something else, she starts talking in a low, steady voice.
"When I was a girl, Mama had what felt like entire photo albums of our ancestors, and we'd build our ofrenda together, and she'd tell me stories as she set out each picture. Some of them were stories that had been told to her by my abuelos, her parents, and to them by theirs. Some of them were her own. It let us keep our family close, which is really the point even if you don't believe in the dead being able to find their way back in any real way." She wishes she'd had more patience for it, then, but children rarely do, and then her mother's picture was added to the display.
"I've lost... so many people. It's hard to think about them all so I usually don't. I just keep going because if I let myself miss them, I think I'd lay down and die too. It's the same for most people back home. But I still think about those stories Mama told, and... I think maybe there's space for it, now. Here. If we want there to be."