My sisters and I are out of place in the throng of old people, most of whom we don't know; so it was a shock when she finally came up to me, (the chosen spokesperson I guess) and started asking questions about school and other details of my life as if she was a member of my family, checking in for an update. I stood there smiling politely trying not to look confused when my father wondered over and introduced her as my grandmother’s niece, and my cousin. I still didn’t know her name, but she pulled a recent picture of me and my sisters from her wallet and there were tears in her eyes as she hugged us, commenting on how much we looked like our grandmother, whom we had also never met. One by one, they came to us in a like fashion, black suits, big white pearls and somber expressions. First whispering behind our backs, about how beautiful we are, and our resemblance to “her”, before finally getting the nerve to make themselves known to us. We relived the same scene over and over that day.
It was confusing to me then, as it is now, to find that I meant so much, to so many people whom I had never heard of. And I wondered at it, as they buried my grandfather that day next to “her”, rather than the wife he had married and lived with for 30 years AFTER "she" died.
I wondered why my father hadn’t spoken of them or “her”. I wondered if he even remembered her. But most of all I wondered who she must have been to still have such a large impact on so many, almost half a century after her death.
As I looked at the ancient nameless faces surrounding us, I understood that I was important to them because she was. And in me they saw her, my grandmother who died suddenly, at 27, while wearing my face.