Epilogue: About the Doom of My Paternal Grandparents
Wherein Teófilo relates what happened to his paternal grandparents after his birth.
Upon reflection, I should’ve talked about the fate of my paternal grandparents after my birth. Well, Don Antonio survived me by two years and Doña María by three after I was born. They seem to have reconciled and married (or remarried) as the picture below shows them together and lore has it the picture is of their wedding day. He looks happy, and she looks relieved. I don’t know when their marriage ceremony - judging by the mantilla on my grandmother’s head, it was a sacramental Church wedding - but I reckon it was sometime during the 1960s.
Don Antonio was 92 when he passed on. The death certificate understates his age by 15 years and records the cause of death as “senility”. Doña María passed when she was 79 when she passed on due to “varicose vein ruptures” caused by “hepatic cirrhosis, a chronic degenerative disease in which normal liver cells are damaged and are then replaced by scar tissue. Long-term alcoholism is the primary cause of cirrhosis in the United States and by extension, Puerto Rico (Source | Inference extending causes to Puerto Rico cases is mine). A "varicose vein rupture" also known as a varicose aneurysm, is a sac formed by the localized dilatation of the wall of an artery, a vein, or the heart. The most common site for an arterial aneurysm is the abdominal aorta, a principal artery emerging from the heart (Source). A bad, painful way to go caused by alcohol abuse which makes me very sad.
I didn’t get to meet either paternal grandfather. I pray for their eternal rest every day. One day I’ll meet them. That day there will be no more separations, pain, or tears. There will be eternal joy.