The sound of the rooster appeared first. Then a pastel faded blue. A wooden house stands isolated past a long, winding five-kilometer road at the end of la carreterea, where it rained almost every day.

A hand takes his instinctively in a warm, made bed. His mother's face forms creases and is not as pale as his. He wakes, groans, and waits for her to give him seeps of water, and then farina. She made it with milk and cinnamon, heated to a careful degree in a pot; she stirred for a good fifteen minutes in circles. To and fro in meditation. Slowly stirring to ensure the smell matched the taste and was sugar-sweet before it was good to go, so it did not dull the senses. Warm to the throat. What joy. A slow smile on his face. Mami feeds him spoonfuls. She thinks for a moment about how she did not expect to be taking care of a sick, thirty-year-old son, bedridden. She thought by now he would be married, with a few children. As things were here. She imagined a future being a grandmother, being in a cement-built house with tile floors, a small garden, and three bedrooms. In town, by el colmado, by la panaderia, in the calming storm inside with a TV and a working antenna con la señal. Al fin. And mami, to the peaceful quiet of her own room. Leave her to her hands, folding laundry or making sorullos y mofongo. A slow process of building. A slow process of making. Leave her with the town folk, hearing gossip y las palomas as they flap their wings and fly into the afternoon sunlight, and Spanish love songs on the radios en el colmado and los jibaros nearby during breaks. She grieved for a family that would never come.

He made it after eight years of not talking to his mother. He made it to tell her that he wanted to see her. And that this illness was temporary. She knew he was dying but did not know why. 

He won’t tell her as he weakens. As he will eventually cough to the point of exhaustion, with an extremely high fever and hard breathing, his lungs will form heavy clots. He won't tell her how he found escape in the depths of night. How he made love to men who would make love by the moon's dim light. He is possessed at night. He is possessed with the desire to discover his own body, every crevice of his skin. He wants to reach deeper into his soul. If he could capture the essence of being alive just longer. If he only knew that there were other forms of love. Now it is dawn, and the spell disappears. La luz se va. As it always does. 

The routine here is to die slowly. We are the sustainable and unsustainable. We grow guineos niños, aguacates, and still it is not enough. We must venture out to la panaderia. We must venture to the nearest town for canned goods and fish. 

The Virgin Mary stands to protect us. As the candle-lit glass with her image stands watching. The eyes of God are watching in judgment. He is too tired to speak, too tired to confront the truth. To tell his own mother why he could not marry or have children, as it was expected. The nearest clinic hours away down a winding road. He did not bother with expensive treatments and medicine that would slow his inevitable death. 

Do not judge him too harshly.

He doesn't know that God will love him anyway, even as he fades.

Do not lecture him on tradition.

Mother, cry for him. You know the truth deep in your heart. You know why.

Do not assume that because he was made in this world, he was meant to die where he belongs.

What do you expect of him? What do you expect of her?

Those who die slowly know there is no more escaping in the dark.

There is no more dreaming of more.

There is the mundane of human life, and what remains when we approach the end, as we all will.

Remember, we do not have to suffer alone.

Dear God, take him gently in your hands.

Take him to rest.

He was meant for more.

He was meant to love.

He who should know his freedom should live.