A vigil for the living

I PARKED my car on the salt-and-pepper asphalt and crossed the grassy expanse, weaving around headstones.

Clutching flowers and lyrics from a U2 song, I looked for the grave of my sister, Michelle Melissa Becerra.

She was a 22-year-old art history major at UCLA, just months from graduation. She was 10 years younger than I, the baby among my five brothers and sisters.

Michelle and I rarely interacted and I never really understood why. And yet the last time I saw her, Michelle asked whether we were going to take that summer trip to our parents' hometown in central Mexico. I told her to just let me know when. I was looking forward to the trip because I was sure we would bond.

Days later, she lay dead just blocks from home, killed when a car flipped onto the sidewalk where she was walking.

After her burial, I was filled with grief, and regret that I had never had a heart-to-heart talk with my little sister. Certain words should have come from my mouth, even if they made Michelle blush or fidget.

And now she was gone. It was as if she had just disappeared. And so, as lame as it felt to act so belatedly, I had to "talk" to Michelle, even if I had to do so over her drab headstone.

After about 15 minutes of searching, I found the black marker.

And there they were. The two old men.

They were no more than 10 feet away, sitting in lawn chairs and chatting about who knows what. They looked as perfectly at ease as I suddenly felt self-conscious.

With the men in the corner of my eye, words failed me. I didn't want to cry in front of them. I had never found the right words for Michelle when she was alive, and now she was dead, and these men weren't making it any easier. I wanted to tell Michelle that I loved her, but the words would not come out.

I stood quietly by her grave for a few minutes before leaving.

I came back a few months later with more flowers and yet another page of U2 lyrics. And sure enough, the pair were there, this time joined by a few other older men.

I tensed with annoyance, resentful that I didn't have any privacy.

My older brother Javier described a similar scene. Every time he visited the Resurrection Cemetery in Montebello, he said, it seemed they were talking about "mundane stuff," how their cars don't work, what they saw on TV, good lunch spots.