Stories, Old Friends, A Good Time 'Til The End and "A Privilege to Die"

Bishop Ramirez says .... he asked his grandmother, Panchita, "'What have you been doing lately?'

"And she said, 'I've been having a good time.' "

"Wow," Ramirez recalls saying. "What do you do, at 90 years old, to have a good time?

"She says, 'Oh son, I have been going to funerals.' "

Ramirez then asked his grandmother if that meant what it seemed: that she'd been having a good time at funerals.

"'Oh yes," Ramirez recalls his grandmother answering. "Yes, we drink coffee, we tell stories, we meet old friends — it's wonderful. We have a great time.' "

"I said, 'Grandma, how can you have a good time when somebody dies?'

"She looked at me, straight into my eyes. And she was serious, almost scolding me. And she said, 'Son, haven't you learned yet, that it is a privilege to die?'

"In all my years of study, in theology and listening to sermons, I had never quite heard it that way."

Only weeks later, Panchita died.

"She was in the hospital, recovering from a heart attack, but we knew she probably wouldn't make it, at her age," Ramirez says. "And she kept repeating, like a mantra, 'Solo quiero ver a Dios' — I just want to see the face of God.'

Stories, Old Friends, A Good Time 'Til The End | WYPR