Life and death in a Spanish village

Villanueva de Aezkoa, from RutasdeNavarra.com

A friend of mine grew up in a pueblo about 35 miles from our home in Pamplona, in the mountains near the border with France.

His father died a few years ago, and his mother, in her 80s, was living by herself in a huge house with many rooms that she once rented out as a B&B. For many years she kept a big garden in back where she grew vegetables for the table and raised chickens and pigs.

When her health began to fail, she was diagnosed with an incurable illness. My friend's sister took a six-month leave of absence from her job to care for her mother at home.

In the last three weeks of her life, a doctor and a nurse from the national health care system came to see her every day. This despite the fact that the village doesn't have its own clinic. My friend drove the winding roads from Pamplona each night to be with her. His wife also often stayed with her. Even beating the speed limit, the drive takes about an hour and a half each way.


The funeral

The wake was in the family home, the closed casket on display in a front room. When it was time for the funeral mass, my friend, his two adult sons, and some family members lifted the casket and marched behind the priest through the streets to the 15th century gothic church of San Salvador. The town has less than 100 residents, but the family is well known and the small church was packed.

A street in Villanueva de Aezkoa

Three priests concelebrated in front of a magnificent baroque altar piece, a retablo, perhaps 20 feet high and filled with dozens of sculptures of biblical figures.

The burial

Then the pallbearers carried the casket out of the church and led a procession to the cemetery about 100 yards away. The trees around the grave bowed and shook menancingly with the gale-force winds that are common in this mountain pass. No one seemed to notice.

The priests led the mourners in prayer, the casket was lowered into the grave, and then three neighbors picked up shovels, dug into a pile of dirt  and began filling the grave. Everyone watched as the men took their time and carefully shaped the dirt on top into a neat rectangle with angled edges. Then family members placed flowers on top and began receiving mourners at graveside.

Home, church, and grave, all within a stone's throw of each other.

Basque roots

Afterwards, we went to my friend's house to have some wine and beer and local Basque culinary specialties. Many of the people in the town have Basque roots. Aezkoa is a very Basque name.

The village has always been a transit point for goods and animals from one side of the Pyrenees to the other. And depending on who was ruling France, Spain, the Province of Navarra, or the Basque Country over the past thousand years, it might have been a transit point for some illicit traffic. The law enforcement authorities know all these people. Some are family. A man has to make a living.

The area always had good trout fishing, and its fame became global after an American journalist and novelist described his outings on the nearby Irati River. His name is like money in the bank.

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Basque language has mysterious origins

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