Death in a foreign language – Day 1

A.K.A. Bureaucracy BLOWS

Government paperwork is horrible, no matter how you look at it. In another language, the paperwork, processes, and expectations take on GARGANTUAN proportions. Unlike any deaths that I have been touched by in the United States, the Mexican process *could* be considered swift and organized. However as the person who has just lost the love of their life, and can barely speak English through the grief, it was a nightmare-ish vortex. Thank goodness for the friends, community, and chosen family that we built here. Friends fed me, held my hand, translated for me, and handed me an endless supply of tissues.

A huge difficulty for me was that 5 years of Spanish lessons and living here all abandoned me the moment I realized that the Basha was not going to “wake up”. So even the most basic questions – what was his date of birth – were incomprehensible to me. Our friend, who formerly ran a language school here, was my savior. She helped me understand, and filtered some of the extraneous information, so that we could move through the process.

First the paramedics – it took nearly 15 minutes from our call to their arrival. That was about 12 minutes too long. And 12 minutes is too long. They determined they could not help us and called the coroner’s office which started a parade of people from different offices, and different mortuaries (I guess there is a scanner channel for deaths), showing up at our door. The first officials were from the coroner’s office. Interestingly, the coroner’s office is a division of the police who showed up to confirm that the Basha had not been murdered! Along with the coroner’s van to remove the body, there was a woman who needed all sorts of information so they could take the body and do the autopsy (required because we are foreigners). She also insisted that I designate a mortuary that would receive the body once the autopsy was done.

Yes, we have lived here for 5 years, but how often have you ever thought about picking a mortuary!?! There was only one I could think of. And only because I frequently drive past it on the main drag. Many mortuaries were stopping by and giving their contact cards to the friends who stayed outside to fend off anyone who didn’t HAVE TO get in. (ASIDE: the mortuary I randomly picked was AMAZING!! One of their people walked us through every step of the governmental process, as well as delivering the Basha’s ashes to my door)

Once the first papers were complete, they wanted to zip up the body bag and take it away. People wanted to keep me away from my love. Everyone finally relented, and when I finally let him go, I was completely disconsolate. Which, of course, was when the mortuary representative arrived. With more questions and more paperwork.

We finished most of the paperwork at the house, but then had to go to the mortuary to sign the cremation contract and pay. The mortuary staff were great, no hard sell, just a few questions and they accepted “No” as no. Eva, from the mortuary, scheduled our appointments the next day at various government offices and reassured us that she would meet us there to take us through the process.