• • •
Near the conclusion of the ceremony, my brother Pete read from the Scriptures, and I had asked him in advance to share some final words and give people hope. As Pete spoke, God reminded me of the Apostle Peter, who was grieving after he had lost his friend, Jesus. But after the Upper Room experience on the Day of Pentecost, Peter walked out to a huge crowd in Jerusalem and, filled with the Spirit, gave a message and three thousand people were added to the church.
God told me, “Rosie, you can be like that.”
So when my turn came, I began my closing remarks by saying, “Maybe today is very painful for you, as it is for us. Perhaps you are asking yourself, ‘How can I get over this? When will the pain end?’ Perhaps today you realize you need something different in your life.”
Then I told the audience how I had found the answers I had looked for all my life—and that they could do exactly the same. God loved me. I said, “Jesus has my sister in His hands and I want every one of her fans who followed her here on Earth to follow her into Heaven.”
I was honored to let the world know that Jenni was at rest—and that those witnessing the event in the arena, watching on television, or listening by radio could find the same peace. I asked those who needed the Lord, “Please raise your hand and I will pray for you.” I prayed with my eyes closed as I usually do, and when I opened them I saw about three thousand hands in the air. My eyes filled with tears of pain and tears of joy—to know that someone is receiving Jesus in his or her heart always brings joy to my heart, even if it’s crushed.
Outside the arena, men, women, and children watching on large media screens fell to their knees with their hands lifted to God. Only eternity will reveal the impact this had on the estimated audience of not just two, but several million who were watching or listening that day. Later I would hear story after story of people who had connected or reconnected with God that day and amid my devastation, it brought me joy to know that I had contributed to making a difference in people’s lives in a moment of so much pain. Just as I’d dreamed it, just as God and I had discussed, my plan was coming true. Chay and I were working for God, just not in the way I had expected. And even though I would have much preferred for things never to end this way, I know God does everything for a reason and I do not, for an instant, doubt His intentions.
At the conclusion of Chay’s Celestial Graduation, one by one, each member of the family came forward and placed a white rose on her coffin—embracing and kissing the red casket. Then those in attendance formed a line to pay their respects. One by one, they came to see my sister. The procession continued on for hours.
• • •
Twelve days later we had a small, intimate gathering for my sister’s burial. There were no cameras, no fans . . . just family. It was a beautiful ceremony, fit for a queen, with a red carpet and music, just as Chay would have wanted. At the moment when her cocoon was being lowered, I felt as if the ground was being pulled from under my feet and all the strength and determination I had been carrying around for the previous three weeks just crumbled to pieces. I couldn’t bear to think of life without Chay and for an instant I wanted, with all my heart, to throw myself into the grave with her. Without her, life would never be good again and I didn’t even want to try. But the thought of the children—my daughter, Chay’s children, and the baby growing inside me—stopped me in my tracks and from that moment on, no matter how sad I have felt or how much I miss my sister, I have never looked back. I know my place is here now, and when the time comes, my sister and I will be reunited in Heaven.
seventeen
healing
After we took Chay to her final resting place—Mama’s Garden, as the kids chose to call it—on December 31, 2012, Abel, Kassey, and I moved into Chay’s house in Encino. If I was going to act as her trustee, and the guardian of her children, I felt that I needed to be by their side at all times and when they needed me most. Chiquis also moved back into the house and in those first months, we all struggled to find our bearings. That big, beautiful house—my sister’s dream house—was full of people, yet without her it felt so painfully empty.
I took on the leadership of Jenni Rivera Enterprises (JRE) and from the moment I stepped into my new role, I gave it my all. My sister always went above and beyond for me, so I was going to make sure I did the same. And to me that meant giving a hundred and ten percent—sometimes to a fault. I was still pregnant at the time yet I worked day and night, doing my best to handle things and keep her empire running, always hoping that I was making the right decisions and that she would have approved.
It was a difficult time. There have been so many difficult times in my life, but 2013 was by far the hardest year I’ve ever had to live. Not only did I lose my sister; I lost my life. Practically overnight I went from being the Riveras’ anonymous little sister, working her nine-to-five job and preaching on the weekends, to being Jenni Rivera’s trustee, the keeper of her legacy. I had trouble finding myself in this new paradigm where I was constantly being watched and never had a minute to myself. I missed my anonymity and just being able to go get ice cream with my family or go for a run in the park. But my biggest challenge, and what I simply couldn’t understand, was how I was supposed to continue living without my sister in the world. In the days and weeks after her burial, I walked around like a zombie. That old familiar feeling of not wanting to live any longer came back to haunt me and I found myself torn between my duties to my sister and the internal turmoil that was taking over my mind and my heart. All the emotions I had been able to somewhat keep at bay while we were planning the Celestial Graduation and the burial came flooding out and I wasn’t always able to control them. If I had been left to my own devices, I would have probably holed up and cried for days and days but I had to keep it together and fulfill my promise to my sister.
It was so hard. At the Gibson I had said to the world, “All things work for good,” and I knew in my heart that God had taken my sister for a reason, but I was not yet able to see what that reason was. “Why didn’t you take me with her, God?” I’d ask Him. I was the one who had always wanted to die; I was the one who had begged Him, for years and years, to end my life. Chay wanted to live. She always wanted to live. She was going to be eighty and still rocking the world, touching hearts and swaying souls. There was no one more alive than Chay; she had dreams and plans—her whole life was about the present and the future, whereas for as long as I could remember, I had wanted to die. Granted, with Abel by my side and God in my heart, I was in a much better place than before, but I still knew that being in Heaven is better than being in this cruel world. And knowing that made me want to die even more, because I wanted to be close to God. How could He allow this to happen? Yet I knew there was a reason. There had to be a reason. I just wasn’t seeing it yet. The pain was blinding me.
• • •
Grieving the death of a loved one is something everyone does in his or her own way, and it is something that all of us, in one way or another, will have to do. There is no right or wrong way to do it; there is just the way that is right for you. Some people need a lot of time, others just a few days, or weeks. Some need to talk about it with everyone around them, while others prefer to keep it private.
In my case, the process has happened very slowly. I have had many conversations with God, trying to understand why she had to go so soon. In one of my attempts to deal with my pain, I went to see a Christian grief counselor. I went through counseling the same way I saw many therapists after my sexual abuse. I guess that after so many years of keeping terrible secrets to myself, I finally learned the value of talking and analyzing what goes through my mind and heart. In my sessions, I talked about the pain I was feeling, how angry I was at God for having taken her away from me, how heartbroken I was to have to live without her. The counselor heard me out, made a few points, and then he suddenly said something that shifted my entire world. Instead of delving deeper into my
feelings of loss and disappointment, he just asked me to pray with him. He put his hands together and said:
“Thank you, God, for Jenni.”
At that moment it dawned on me: all this time I had been so upset at God for taking her away from me that I had forgotten to thank Him for the thirty-one years I had her. And I had to thank Him because He didn’t just give me a sister (we all know that there are good sisters, and there are not-so-good sisters). He gave me The Most Amazing Sister in the World. She wasn’t only an unbelievable performer, an inspiring woman, an extraordinary mother. She was the most incredible sister: the person who never let me down, who never talked down to me or scolded me, and when I was wrong, she’d tell me but always with such love that I never felt ashamed. She knew of all my mistakes and all my flaws and even so, she still loved me. She was the one person in the world who always, always, stood by my side. So many people go through life without experiencing even a fraction of that, and I had had it for thirty-one years. That’s when I started to find some peace; my sister was a light that shone so bright that if God had to take her, it was okay because for the time I had her, it was amazing.
The truth is, I don’t think I’ll ever get over losing my sister without God. As time goes by, I’ve learned to deal with it better because God has begun to heal my heart but it’s still a process to complete healing. She was the most important person in my life. And no matter how much comfort I may find in my family and in God, not a day goes by when I don’t wish I could hug her just one more time. But I know I will, on a Wednesday in Heaven.
• • •
My sister left me in charge of her businesses and her legacy, but of all the responsibilities she left me with, the one that mattered most was taking care of her children. I saw my sister break her back to provide for her kids, whether it was back in the days when she was selling real estate in Long Beach, or later when she became a recording artist. Her schedule was always jam-packed with things to do—she traveled from gigs to press conferences to charity events to TV appearances and even though what she loved most in the world was to be home and spend time with her kids, every day she would wake up and hit the road to build a better life for them, the best life possible. Chiquis, Jacqie, Mikey, Jenicka, and Johnny are five extraordinary human beings. They each carry a little part of Chay; it comforts me to know that she continues to live through each and every one of them.
Chay always said that being a mom was her favorite job and she was great at it. And with her no longer here to look after them, I made them my number one priority. Everything that had to do with my dreams and my life was put on hold. It wasn’t a sacrifice; it wasn’t an effort—it’s what I wanted to do. In 2012, I had started working on this book and recording an album but none of that was going to happen because my sister needed me. My nieces’ and nephews’ comfort, their well-being, became more important to me than my own. I even asked my husband to put his dreams on hold—Abel is an incredible singer and he was working to record his first album, but the minute my life changed, he dropped everything to support me. He took care of the house, the kids, everything that needed to run smoothly so I could do my new job in the best way possible.
When it came to taking care of the kids, things weren’t as simple as they might seem. Johnny and Jenicka had just lost their mother, they had recently lost their father, and their little hearts had so much healing to do. But as much as I wanted to help them every step of the way, one of the things I had to learn was to give them love and care without being overbearing and controlling. I needed to make sure they could continue with their lives the way they wanted them to be. In fact, I went to counseling to learn how to help them grieve and the child psychologist I met with advised me that life had to remain as close to normal as possible. I needed to make sure they didn’t have to confront too many changes considering how much had already changed with the fact that their mother wasn’t there anymore. I had to navigate a fine line between giving them the space they needed to grieve while giving Chiquis her place as their true guardian, and I had to keep being their loving aunt, making sure they knew in their hearts that they aren’t orphans because they will always have us, their family. Sometimes they resisted my presence and while I totally understood and responded by giving them more space and privacy, I worried all the time that I was letting my sister down by not taking proper care of her babies.
• • •
Six months after Chay’s accident, on July 24, 2013, Abel and I welcomed our beautiful baby girl into the world. A true Rivera, she didn’t make her entrance like a normal baby in a hospital bed but in a car!
I was in Chay’s office when my water broke and no one else was in the house. She and I were alone. Ever since her departure, Chay is always with me so I knew I didn’t have to be afraid because she was going to help me through it.
Abel had gone out to get us lunch and because I had been in labor for thirty-five hours with Kassey, I didn’t even bother to call him, I was so convinced we had time. I finished up what I was doing and about thirty minutes later I texted him “Babe my water broke. No worries, we have time.” Abel of course arrived immediately, all hurried and nervous only to find me casually shaving my legs in the shower. Because I was so calm, he started recording me and I was joking and being cute for the camera—saying I was doing so well I could pop out two babies if I wanted to—when suddenly, within ten minutes, my contractions went from perfectly tolerable to absolutely insane. As soon as the contractions gave me a breather, I jumped out of the shower and managed to put on a bra and a skirt—thank God for the skirt because it ended up being the perfect escape route for the baby! Abel rushed after me with a shirt and the diaper bag.
Within a matter of minutes, we were in the car on the way to the hospital. I was in excruciating pain. I hiked my feet up on the dashboard and before I knew it, the baby’s head popped out! We were completely panicked, and in my pain-induced stupor I didn’t know whether I should push or try to hold the baby in until we got to the hospital. Abel pulled up on the side of the road and got on the phone with 911, who told him what he needed to do to deliver the baby. There, on the corner of Havenhurst and Esprit at one thirty p.m., our youngest daughter was born. Following instructions from 911, Abel tied the umbilical cord with his shoelace so our baby girl could take her first breath in this world.
We named her Samantha Chay. My sister loved giving everyone nicknames and “Samalia,” “Sam,” or “Sammy” is what she called me when I was growing up. “Chay” is the nickname Juan and I gave to her, so in Sammy Chay, my sister and I are united once again. I named my daughter after Chay, the amazing woman I knew and I pray she inherits my sister’s extraordinary characteristics of love, mercy, work ethic, generosity and passion. And I’d love Sammy Chay to have my sister’s personality from being a morning person to giving it all for things she believed in. The birth was on a Wednesday—Chay’s favorite day of the week. In sharing the good news via Twitter, I wrote, “Yesterday was Tuesday and today I saw my sister. Thank You, God, because today, on a Wednesday, Chay helped pass a beautiful baby girl from Your arms into my arms.”
• • •
That first year we all worked around the clock to make Chay’s legacy shine, but as weeks turned into months, and months turned into years, I started to see how the intensity of my dedication was taking a toll on my family. JRE took over my existence and I would take care of more of my duties there than I’d take care of myself and my pregnancy. I wouldn’t sleep, I’d barely eat—all I cared about was JRE and the children. If Jenicka needed to talk or Johnny needed help with his homework, I wanted to be there. Not because they asked that of me, but because I felt it was my duty. If there was anything I could do to make their lives better, that became my priority.
“Go get some rest, Tía. Don’t worry we can talk tomorrow,” the kids would say to me sometimes. “Tía, go be with your family. We’re okay.”
I worried about them so mu
ch and even though I knew that it wasn’t in my hands to offer them solace, I never wanted them to feel lonely or lost. I was so preoccupied with them that year that God knows I didn’t give my sweet Kassey all the attention she deserved. Deep in my mind, I thought, Even if I’m not present, at least my daughter has her mother—Chay’s kids don’t even have that. They need me more, right now. Kassey and I will have time later. But time is a tricky thing. You always think you’ll have more of it, until one day you don’t. And if Chay’s death had taught me anything, it was that.
Abel perfectly understood everything that was going through my mind, but he started to worry about what this frenzy was doing to our family.
“You know, wife, JRE isn’t more important than our family,” he’d say to me. “What about our daughter? And our baby? You need to take care of them too.”
When Abel started to say these things I realized that I was going too far. That wasn’t what my sister would have wanted. Yes, she wanted me to help preserve her legacy for the sake of the kids; she wanted me to take care of JRE, but she would have never wanted me to put that before my husband and my daughters. She knew how much I had struggled to find true love and now that I had a man who didn’t just love me, but also loved my big crazy family, she wouldn’t have wanted me to let that go. So I began to take a step back and while I was still there to support the kids in anything they needed, I was able to make time to take care of my family as well.
My Broken Pieces : Mending the Wounds from Sexual Abuse Through Faith, Family and Love (9781101990087) Page 23
