I packed away my last pair of black dress socks and zipped up my suitcase. I scanned the small bedroom for any belongings I may have forgotten; I peered under both twin beds, inside the white dresser, and then in the bathroom cupboards. Having completed my inspection, I grabbed the suitcase and descended the marble stairs and left the house through the side door. My grandmother was in her usual spot, reclined on her lawn chair underneath the balcony of her two-story beach house, shaded from the mid-July Spanish sun. She was engaged in conversation with my father, who also had his suitcase by his side. They were speaking Catalan, a language still foreign to me. I went and plopped down in the lawn chair next to my grandmother. I turned to look at her, and couldn’t help but feel sad. She had been diagnosed with lung cancer several months before, and her time was limited. It was ironic because she wasn’t a smoker, unlike the majority of Spaniards.

      The silver Audi’s engine roared from within the garage, and my aunt pulled it up into the center of the gravel courtyard. It was time to leave. I would definitely miss Spain. I would miss the warm sunny beaches by day and the lively town plazas by night. I would miss the oblivious German tourists and all of my Spanish family. But most of all I would miss the food. The steak, pastas, paellas, all of it. But we would be back. We came here to Pineda de Mar, a small beach town just north of Barcelona, almost every summer. It is my paradise.

      I jump back to reality when I realize that now I actually have to go. I set my suitcase aside and approached my grandma. I thanked her.

      “Adiós, Bella. Muchas gracias para todo.”

      “De nada. Te amo, niño.”

      We always kept things short, as my Spanish was still relatively pathetic. I gave her the traditional two kisses, and turned towards the car. I loaded up my suitcase in the trunk, and sat myself down in left nut. It was cramped in the back of the station wagon once my brother and mom joined me. As we started to pull away, I looked out the window one last time. My grandmother was still seated, but now she was in tears. She knew that she would never see us again. But I, young and naïve, looked away and thought about what I would do once I was back in Berkeley.   
 

      The television set flickered in the dark living room. It was 2 am in mid-October, and I was watching Sportscenter re-runs for the third time, trying to finally catch the highlights from the Cal game. The phone started to ring. What the hell? Who calls at two in the morning? Immediately images of my brother in a hospital bed with alcohol poisoning popped into my head. Unlikely. A prank call? I don’t know. I picked up the receiver.

      “Hello?...hello?”

      “AAAHHHHHHHH!!”

      “What? Hello?”

      “AAAAHHHH!!”

      I hung up. What a psycho. Then it rang again.

      “What.”

      “AAAHHHHH.”

      “Dude, come on.”

      “Por favor, necesitamos Alberto!”

      “Okay, whatever.”

      I put the receiver on the table and started heading upstairs to get my dad. But he was already coming down.

      “Dad. Phone.”

      He picked up the receiver, and I returned to Sportscenter. I had missed the Cal highlights. Damn. A few minutes passed. I could hear my dad speaking in Catalan. This made me suspicious. My dad finally put down the receiver, and hobbled over to me.

      “Bella is dead,” he told me, still half asleep, “she passed in her sleep.”

      My mouth dropped. I didn’t know what to say. I was too shocked to feel emotion. But in my gut I knew what was coming. We were going to Spain.  
 

      Three days later I was boarding a plane headed for Philadelphia. The plan was to fly to the City of Brotherly Love, and from there catch a flight to Barcelona. The layover would be relatively short, no more than two hours. I had packed lightly for the trip, considering how brutally short it was going to be. The entire thing lasted only three days, leaving on a Saturday morning and arriving back on Monday. I packed lightly; most of my luggage consisted of schoolwork. We anticipated a smooth trip, but things went awry early.

      Shit hit the fan first on the flight from San Francisco to Philly. A storm was raging all across the east, delaying all flights. We ended up circling around the Philadelphia airport for about an hour and a half, putting us at danger of missing the plane to Spain. The worst part was the flight attendant announcing over the intercom repeatedly, “We’ll be landing momentarily, people, hold your horses.” She followed this up with her own rendition of “Smooth Operator.” It was pathetic. 

      No way was my father going to let us miss that flight. Planes don’t travel from Philadelphia to Barcelona that often, and surely one wouldn’t leave at this time of the night. From the moment we touched down and started to taxi around I could tell that he was going to do something insane. He looked noticeably agitated. His scattered grey hairs in the sea of black seemed more prominent; the dark circles under his eyes looked more like permanent wrinkles. He appeared older. But the giveaway was his hands. One was firmly gripping the airplane armrest, while the other was in his mouth. My father always chews his knuckles when he’s tense. I’ve told him hundreds of times that it’s repulsive, but it’s simply an unbreakable habit. He could quit smoking easily, but he can’t quit chewing his knuckles.

      As we began to pull into the gate, I decided to make a pre-emptive strike. I simply told my dad, “Just chill for a minute. We won’t miss the flight.” But that didn’t stop him. The moment the seat belt sign clicked off, he bolted. Carry-on in hand, he literally sprinted down the center aisle before anyone could stand and remove their baggage from the overhead bin. Never before had I seen my dad move that quickly. It was embarrassing for me, but it had to be done. But his efforts were of no avail, as we had missed the flight to Spain. So we were stranded in Philadelphia with no place to stay, and we had a funeral to attend in two days across the Atlantic Ocean. 
 

      Getting marooned in Philly was actually the best thing to happen to us. Our short time there was my favorite part of the entire trip. That night we rescheduled for the same flight to Barcelona on the following day. That left us less than twenty four hours in Spain. But Philadelphia was amazing. We had the opportunity to visit where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, see the Liberty Bell, and even checked out UPenn. But the best was running up the City Hall steps Rocky style, and then dancing around at the top. Philadelphia is a European style city; it really reminded me of London. But the pleasant part of my “vacation” lasted for only an afternoon, and before I knew it I was on another plane headed over the Atlantic.

      I happen to hate airplanes with a fiery passion. I despise everything about them: the synthesized food, the foul smell, the uncomfortable cabin pressure, the humanity (especially the obese ones that always happen to sit next to me), the gargantuan beverage carts that manage to block the entire aisle, the disgusting lavatories, and the gut-wrenching turbulence. I love spending time in Spain, but the transit is the worst part.   
 

      By the time we landed in Spain, I was physically dead. We had spent so much time on airplanes with so little solid comfortable sleep. We landed around 10 am Barcelona time, which is 1 am Berkeley time. The funeral was scheduled for later that night, followed by a dinner with my cousins. But I was glad to finally arrive. The hotel was spectacular - one of those new ones with the modern interiors. I had never stayed in one so nice. It was located in near the city center, in the most beautiful part of town. I managed to pass out as soon as my body hit the sheets of the twin bed.

      My mom woke me half an hour later.

      “Why the hell are you asleep? Now your hair is all messed up. You’ll have to take another shower. We don’t have time for sleep today. What the hell were you thinking?!”

      I stood up feeling all groggy. No time for sleep? This sucks. I want to go home.

      Come funeral time I was essentially sleepwalking. The ceremony itself was held in a small room on the side of a large church. My distant relatives (most of whom I don’t know) came from all over Catalunya for this event, all dressed in black, and sporting white handkerchiefs to wipe away the tears. We arrived half an hour early, time used for handshakes and kisses. My brother and I were the centers of attention, as we were Bella’s only grandchildren, and “the Americans.” It was irritating how no one actually spoke directly to me, thinking that I didn’t speak any Spanish. I mean, my Spanish wasn’t great, but I could hold a simple conversation. They just spoke Catalán with my dad and let him be my translator. It was kind of a slap in the face.

      The entire ceremony was conducted in Catalán. This too was very annoying, but expected. The only word I could understand was the Catalán “foc,” meaning fire, simply because it sounds similar to a special English word. I tried not to crack up whenever I heard it, noting my immaturity.

      I was surprised that all the emotion hadn’t hit me yet. Throughout the whole ceremony I didn’t feel anything. It was strange. My brother and I were standing stoically in the front row, not knowing what the hell was going on, while everyone around us was breaking down. The Catalán priests have a tendency to speak insanely fast, in an attempt to make the service as short as possible, and the congregation has no problem with it. It seems sacrilegious to me, but I guess that’s how they operate. They must think that they’ve done enough for Catholicism that they can afford to cut some corners. Within thirty-five minutes the service was over, and I was outside shaking hands and kissing cheeks again. There was no casket, no body viewing. I guess cremation is the thing in Spain. It was rather anti-climactic.

      Dinner followed the service, a typical three hour Spanish meal. We had a private room in the restaurant with multiple waiters hovering over us, filling water glasses after one sip. The attention is nice, but I really don’t enjoy these dinner ordeals. They’re too long and too awkward. But at least there’s no enforced drinking age in Spain, so I had the pleasure of downing enough beers to make things livelier. We ate with my cousin Pablo’s family. He has five children. People in Spain are always talking about how the population is shrinking and how it’s a disaster. They obviously haven’t met Pablo. Usually when we eat with Pablo and his family the time is filled with awkward silences and even more awkward conversations. The beer solved that problem.

      Monday brought another long and painful series of plane rides, and a return to the monotony of school and regular life. The fifteen hours of transit gave me plenty of time to think. I thought about Berkeley, and how I only had to go to four days of school that week. I thought of how I was ahead on my history reading. I then thought of the coming summer, and my plans. Would I stay in the bay, or would I go visit Bella in Spain? Then it hit me. There was no Bella. It was like someone had socked me in the face. I sat there and looked at my toes, and let everything marinate for a few minutes. My life was changed. My grandmother, a rock, a constant throughout my childhood, was dead. The emotion then began to well up. No tears, as I have a tendency not to show my emotion, just a realization. Damn. My grandmother served as a bridge between myself, an American, and the Spanish culture. Whenever she spoke, I could understand. Whatever food she prepared (some Spanish food can be creepy), I found delicious. Wherever we went together, she made it less foreign to me. Now I was on my own. I was alone in learning to embrace my Spanish heritage, something I had to do real fast. I felt incomplete, like peanut butter without jelly, or Cheech without Chong. It was too much to handle. My outlet was sleep. I woke up on a San Francisco runaway, all but ready to take on the world.